9.99 victory for Dwain Chambers (c) in Bergen (© Mark Shearman)
Great Britain’s Dwain Chambers produced the individual highlight of the first day (19) of the 2010 SPAR European Team Championships, speeding to a 9.99 100m, while Russia has a healthy lead of 21 points over the rest of Europe’s top nations overnight.
Chambers produced the fastest run by a European sprinter for almost four years, becoming the first man from the continent to run under the 10-second barrier since Portugal’s Francis Obikwelu ran exactly the same time to win his 2006 European title.
He had a less-than-blistering start but his pick up was excellent and, by 20 metres, Chambers had his nose in front and was never headed, aided by a 1.1mps breeze behind him.
However, France’s Christophe Lemaître, the 2009 European Athletics Junior Championships 100m gold medallist who took Chambers’ long-standing European junior record with 10.04 last year, chased Chambers all the way to the line and clocked a personal best of 10.02.
Let battle commence in Barcelona
The stage is now set for a fascinating battle for European sprint supremacy which should come to a climax at the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona, Spain, next month.
"That's the competition I've been striving for all season and I'm looking forward to competing against him again. It's going to be a great year," said Chambers.
"Taking my European (junior) record last year caused me to raise an eyebrow. I am very aware of Lemaître. He stepped on to the map last year and he has backed that up this year. He held his own against Asafa Powell in the Diamond League in Rome recently,” added the British sprinter, who is 12 years Lemaître’s senior.
Lemaître doesn’t appear as though he is going to happily settle for second place again.
“I feel I'm still missing something, I am a bit disappointed, but I am beginning to recover mentally from Rome. Dwain (Chambers) is very strong but three hundredths difference between us is nothing. At the moment, I need more races and in Barcelona, I think I’ll be really into it and have a great chance to go under 10 seconds there,” reflected the ambitious youngster, you only turned 20 just over a week ago.
Eight victories for Russia
After relinquishing their place as Europe’s leading athletics nations to Germany at the inaugural SPAR European Team Championships in the Portuguese city of Leiria 12 months ago, Russia’s athletes and coaches have come to Bergen determined to regain the their place at the top.
They made an emphatic step towards achieving their target with eight victories in the 21 contests on Saturday, and only fell outside the top three in six events, and occupy pole position with 209 points.
Great Britain hold second place with 188 points, having won every individual men’s event on the track on Saturday, while Italy posted a strong overall performance to finish the first day in third with 160.5 points.
Defending champions Germany are surprisingly languishing back in seventh place with 141.5 points while the bottom three teams that face relegation to the First League next year are Greece, hosts Norway and Finland.
Arguably the pick among the Russian wins was Yuliya Zarudneva’s gun-to-tape 3000m Steeplechase victory.
The 2009 IAAF World Championships silver medallist had a solo run to win in 9:23.00, finishing nearly 20 seconds ahead of the rest of the field, and clearly has plenty left in store for the rest of the season.
Zarudneva shot to the front immediately and went through the first kilometre in a fast 3:05.21 and, although she gradually slowed over the course of the remaining five laps, it was still an impressive performance in windy conditions that caused difficulties for many competitors.
"To be honest running on your own is a bit tedious and boring. I wanted to start at 3.08 pace for the first thousand metres but just ran it more quickly as I was on my own,” said Zarudneva. “ I could see that everyone behind me just had their brakes on. The wind didn’t cause me too many problems but there were a couple of occasions when a couple of nasty gusts caught me unaware and almost next me into the next lane.”?
"I could probably have run much faster today but it was a bit unusual as this was my first Steeplechase race since the World Championships in Berlin and I have only done one training session since then with barriers," she added.
No failures for Feofanova
The former Pole Vault World record holder and IAAF World champion Svetlana Feofanova, who is still only 29 despite the feeling that she has been around for much longer, won her specialist event with 4.65m and curiously ended the competition with the rare accolade of not having brought the bar down.
Having cleared 4.40m, 4.55m and 4.65m with her first attempt, Feofanova then passed 4.70m and watched her only remaining rival, Germany’s Silke Spiegelburg, depart from the competition.
Having won on count back, and with the maximum 12 points in the bag, Feofanova looked at the rapidly fluttering flags around the Fana Stadium and decided to call it a day.
One Russian who was reasonably happy to have windy conditions was Pavel Shalin, who won the Long Jump with a wind-assisted 8.26m, confirming his talent to a wider audience after his big personal best of 8.25m at the Moscow Cup two weeks ago.
Other Russian other victories came from Kseniya Ustalova and Nataliya Antioch, who won the women’s 400m and 400m Hurdles in 51.79 and 55.27 respectively.
Both women - who lead the European rankings in the events - had big margins to spare over their rivals, despite the difficult conditions, and should go to the European Athletics Championships as the favourites to get gold medals.
Alexandr Shustov, the 2010 world leader with 2.33m, won the High Jump after being the only man over 2.28m while Yelena Zadorozhnaya took the women’s 3000m in 9:08.42 after going through the gears on the last lap.
Russia’s well-drilled women’s 4x100m team, the 2008 Olympic Games gold medallists, also took their expected first place in the penultimate event of the day, winning in a European-leading time of 42.98.
Müller brightens Germany’s day
Despite other below-par performances, one German to rise to the occasion was Discus thrower Nadine Müller.
Müller leads the world rankings this year with the 67.78m she threw in Wiesbaden last month and the draw had given her the privilege of being the first to throw in Bergen and she effectively ended the competition within seconds of entering the circle with her opening effort of 63.53m.
The throw proved to be almost four metres further than anyone else could manage.
In addition to Chambers, another Britain to catch the eye was the 2009 IAAF World Championships 400m Hurdles finalist David Greene, the only European under 49 seconds this year.
‘Dai’ Greene to his friends ran a very strong second half of his race and became the first winner of the Championships on the track when he clocked 49.53, winning by over half-a-second.
Phil Minshull for the IAAF
Click here for full results from Day 1
