David Gillick breasts the tape in the men's 400m in Birmingham (© Getty Images)
Birmingham, UK A crowd rousing home victory in a championship record in the Triple Jump and an enthralling battle over two laps which brought an Irish 400m record for David Gillick conjured up an atmospheric PM session of action on the second day of the 29th European Indoor Championships.
What a difference a day can make
Only yesterday we remarked on the low level of the Triple Jump qualification round which was taking place in the regrettable injured absence of Olympic champion Christian Olsson, the season’s world leader (17.44). Then suddenly today not just one but two athletes bound past the Swede’s yearly best.
The fact that Phillips Idowu and Nathan Douglas, the gold and silver medallists today were British was to the obvious delight of the crowd in the national indoor arena which was approaching spectator capacity for the first time this afternoon.
Idowu’s giant performance came as a brave opening gambit from an athlete who has been carrying a heel injury all season. The 17.56m which flashed on the scoreboard stunned the field and was to remain the best of the day, and is the world’s best this winter. Well ‘stunned’ might be a slight exaggeration as runner-up Douglas actually assembled a solid series of efforts which overall surpassed his compatriot. Douglas’s 17.47m in the third round topped other attempts of 17.08, 17.22, and 17.41 jumps, and also bettered Olsson’s world season best. But medals are of course secured with one leap not for consistency in six.
The gold medal jump was a championship record, a pre-planned ploy of an all out effort from an athlete concerned about a bruised heel which he had picked up at the end of January at a match in Glasgow, and then aggravated at the national championship in Sheffield at the end of last month.
“My aim today was to get a big jump in and then be a spectator for the rest of the competition,” confirmed Idowu… “I had to wait until the last round to be really sure that I’d won as Nathan (Douglas) kept going further and further.”
Gillick defends in style
Ireland’s David Gillick entered these championships as the second quickest runner in the world this season with a 45.91 performance, a national record which he had run in Düsseldorf on 6 February. The 23-year-old, who won this title in 2005 but could only make the semi-final stage of the 2006 outdoor championships in Gothenburg, had shown impressive form in yesterday’s two opening rounds, so his victory today in a European leading 45.52 was on the cards.
Gillick’s principal opponent, Germany’s Bastian Swillims who had broken 46 seconds indoors for the first time in Leipzig on 18 February took the race out, and was still in the lead on the final bend. He might have been physically at the head of the field of six runners but one sensed he was not in charge of proceedings, and that rather the Irishman was in full control of the race from behind. And so it turned out to be. Gillick, was full of running and had to chop his stride as the finalists broke out of lane, in order not to run into or past the German too early.
When the Irishman’s strike came it was decisive, and Swillims had no possible answer. The German held on for silver, with Britain’s Robert Tobin who had jousted with Gillick in the semi-final yesterday snatching the bronze ahead of Sweden’s Johan Wissman – 46.15 to 46.17.
“Swillims went off so hard that I just had to stay with him and wait,” said Gillick. “I knew in the last 50 metres I would have him.”
Yes, Ecker is the champion!
At the end of the men’s Pole Vault final, Germany's Danny Ecker knew he’d won, the pre-event favourite Björn Otto knew Ecker had won, and the results sheet showed Ecker had won. However, Ecker’s victory was enough of a surprise that when the gold medal winning flash interview was erroneously released with Otto’s name on top of it that it necessitated a quick re-check of the results just to reassure this writer.
Otto with 5.90m (PB) and 5.88m triumphs respectively in Leipzig and Stuttgart last month is the world leader this season, and was the clear favourite despite being joined in the Birmingham final by two 6m vaulting team-mates, the former two-time European indoor and 2003 World Indoor champion Tim Lobinger and Ecker.
In the end it wasn’t so much Otto, who took the bronze, who disappointed but rather the competition as a whole, as the medals were decided at a relatively low 5.71m, with 5.51 good enough for fourth place! Ecker with a clean jumping record – first time clearances at 5.51m and 5.71 – took gold ahead of Ukraine’s Denys Yurchenko who required two attempts to clear the same bars. Otto finished in bronze by virtue of needing all three approaches to 5.71m before he was successful.
The 3000m final could also be described as below par if we consider the finishing times of the medallists. That’s taking nothing away from Italy’s Cosimo Caliandro who produced a perfectly timed attack in the final straight but 8:02.44 won’t be sending any shock waves around the athletics world. In silver (8:02.85) and bronze (8:02.91) were the more established names of Bob Tahri (FRA), the steeplechase specialist, and Jesús España (ESP), the European 5000m champion.
Progressing Pognon
Jason Gardener took the first semi-final heat of the dash in 6.58, bettering his speed from this morning’s opening round. What will be less reassuring for the Briton who is campaigning for his fourth consecutive continental 60m title at these championships was the even more dramatic improvement of France’s Ronald Pognon. At 24-years-old the Frenchman is seven years younger than his British opponent, and while still nowhere near the European record he set in 2005 (6.45), his rising form in Birmingham should be ringing a few alarm bells in the British team camp.
Still the hosts are not a one man band. In fact Britain’s Craig Pickering won the second semi-final in the same time as Gardener, while their University of Bath team mate Ryan Scott set his PB of 6.63 following home Gardener and Pognon in heat one.
Just by the balance of three to one you would favour a British victory tomorrow as the more likely outcome of the final, and yet both home and French hopes might be upstaged by Italy’s Fabio Cerutti whose 6.62 for second place behind Pickering was a personal best.
Okken smooth, Ouesada gutsy
In the men’s 800m semis, the Netherlands Arnoud Okken, 24, continues to run smoothly, taking the second heat in 1:49.65, virtually unopposed. However, it is just a gut feeling but by the look of the first heat I would personally feel safer with my money riding on the fortunes of the Spaniard Miguel Quesada in the final. The 27-year-old who was fifth at last summer’s outdoor championships in Gothenburg, showed real fighting spirit when holding off Sweden’s Mattias Claesson in today’s much swifter opening heat – 1:48.62 to 1:49.06.
Spain also looks to be on a medal promise in the 1500 metres, with Juan Carlos Higuero (3:43.02) and Sergio Gallardo (3:42.24) he first and third fastest overall qualifiers from the two heats for the final, with France’s Abdelkader Bakhtache (3:43.21) the second quickest.
Sebrle has Pogorelov on his heels
After completing the final two events on the first day in the Heptathlon, the two-time defending champion Roman Sebrle finds himself closely pursued by Russia’s Aleksandr Pogorelov. The 19 point advantage which the 32-year-old Czech held over his pursuer after the opening two disciplines remained the same after the Shot Put and High Jump. Sebrle's 16.12m Shot Put (859pts) was the best of the day but what he gained over the Russian (15.21m – 803pts), was immediately lost when he could manage no more than 2.02m in the High Jump. Sebrle has an indoor PB of 2.13m, and leapt 2.09m when winning this title in 2005.
Pogorelov was simply more consistent in his two performances this afternoon, and just as he did in the Shot he also produced the second best overall performance in the High Jump with a fine 2.08m. This was relatively a much better result for the 27-year-old whose indoor PB is 2.11m.
So overnight, Sebrle has 3549pts, with Pogorelov next on 3530, and Belarussia’s Andrei Krauchanka, the European Junior Decathlon champion, who was the best high jumper with 2.11m (2.19m indoor PB in 2005) lying in a distant third (3385).
Chris Turner for the IAAF
