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specific competitions were on the calendar on consecutive evenings this week in Prague, with the traditional Pole Vault meeting taking place on Wednesday followed by the High Jump on Thursday.
The 16th Winter Pole Vault meeting at the Strahov Training Hall saw Jan Kudlicka score an indoor personal best with a third-attempt 5.62m to win the men’s division. The Daegu finalist from the Czech Republic ended the evening with two respectable attempts at would-be Istanbul-qualifying 5.72m.
Maksym Mazuryk of Ukraine, the reigning European silver medallist, finished second with a season-best 5.50m. Tied for third at 5.35m were Germany’s Hendrik Gruber and Stanislau Tsivonchyk of Belarus. Tsivonchyk is the younger brother of Andrei, who won the Atlanta Olympic bronze medal for Germany after emigrating from his native Belarus.
Also at 5.35m, in fifth place, was Michel Frauen of Germany, followed in sixth by his compatriot Tim Lobinger with 5.20m.
Only four days after vaulting a Czech national-record 4.70m at the Pole Vault Stars competition in Donetsk, Jirína Ptácníková was understandably still tired but had no problem winning the women’s contest with 4.52m. She ended the afternoon with unsuccessful tries at a would-be meeting record of 4.66m.
Behind Ptácníková in second was Germany’s Annika Roloff with 4.32m, followed by Romana Malácková in third and Nataliya Mazuryk, the wife of Maksym, in fourth as both peaked at 4.20m.
The abbreviated program included a combined men’s and women’s Long Jump competition. Roman Novotny won the men’s event with a season-best 8.02m, while Jana Korešová took the women’s title with 5.97m.
The 31st Novinárská Latka High Jump meeting was again held in the Metropole Shopping Center in the Zlícin section of Prague, and it gave several lesser-known European jumpers an opportunity to make some headlines.
In the end, it was the first-jump success at 2.27m by Bulgarian Viktor Ninov which proved to be the winner on a countback against Poland’s Piotr Sleboda, who needed two tries at the height.
Both jumpers ended up with personal bests, Ninov up one centimetre from the 2.26m he leaped a week ago, and Sleboda with a double PB (at 2.24m and 2.27m) ahead of a 2.23m from last month.
Ironically, both Ninov and Sleboda had to go to a third attempt at 2.24m to stay alive, and at that point they were trailing Italy’s Silvano Chesani who managed the height on his leadoff jump. Chesani failed at 2.27m, ending in third and leaving the other two to duel for the top two spots.
Ninov, jumping ahead in the order, had one miss at 2.29m, and after seeing his Polish adversary also miss, the Bulgarian passed. Sleboda exited after two more misses, after which Ninov had two futile attempts at 2.32m.
Jaroslav Bába complained of being weary after his seventh competition in the last three weeks. His best of 2.20m left in fourth, ahead on a countback against French jumpers Fabrice Saint-Jean (5th) and Mikaël Hanany (6th).
Full results may be found here: http://online.atletika.cz/vysledky.aspx?idk=15009
