Kaunas, LithuaniaA great discus battle was the clear highlight of European Athletics Permit Meeting in Kaunas, Lithuania on 25 July.
Home hero Virgilijus Alekna, the double World and Olympic champion, in the last throw of his series produced a 71.56m release, his season’s best and the second overall best of the summer.
Until that sixth round Alekna was loosing to world leader Gerd Kanter of Estonia who had 69.92m up to that point and also improved to 70.92 in the last round.
Alekna remains unbeaten since August 2005.
In third place, Piotr Malachowski of Poland achieved a new national record of 66.61m. Also over 66 metres were the Hungarians Gabor Mate (66.45m) and Zoltan Kovago (66.42m).
The event was named Virgilijus Alekna Challenge which was last year held as separate meet in Vilnius and this year was connected to Kaunas Permit and next year it is again planned to be separate again.
One of the other top marks at the meeting was the new Slovak record by Dmitrij Valukevic in last round of Triple Jump leaping to 17.35m (+1.3). It is seventh best mark of the year.
“I still feel I can do more, I had fouls in Madrid at 17.50-17.60 level. Here in Kaunas the conditions were from ideal, some rain and under 20 degrees,“ he commented.
Latvian Olympic silver medallist Vadim Vasilevskis confirmed his winning shape with 85.97 Javelin Throw.
In the Long Jump, Jamaican James Beckford leapt with 7.87m.
There were also great sprints by overseas guests:
USA’s Mickey Grimes clocked 10.12 (+0.3) at 100m which beat compatriot Mike Rodgers (10.16).
USA’s Joel Brown sped over the 110m Hurdles into his season best of 13.32 (+0.5) and in close contest beat fellow American Eric Mitchum (13.33) and Ukrainian Sergiy Demidyuk (13.35).
The USA women’s sprint relay team achieved a nice 38.95 at 4x100 m, while in the individual 400m Monique Hennagan (USA) won in 51.73.
Alfons Juck for the IAAF
