Oleksiy Kasyanov of Ukraine, the early leader of the men's heptathlon (© Getty Images)
Fast sprinting, and some major casualties in the Long Jump and the Pole Vault marked out a low key second morning of competition at the 30th European Athletics Indoor Championships in Turin’s Oval Lingotto.
The 60 is a one man show
The men’s 60m title chase opened uneventfully. The prodigious favourite for the gold medal Dwain Chambers strolled to a 6.53 sec run in heat 3 to lead the qualifiers for this evening’s semi-final. His British compatriots Simeon Williamson (6.61) and Craig Pickering (6.63), the silver medallist two years ago, also went through as heat winners respectively of the fourth and first heats.
The hosts Italy cleaned up the other two races, Emanuele Di Gregorio the winner of the second (6.60) and Fabio Cerutti (6.62) the victor of the fifth and final heat, but the hosts will be sorry to have lost Simone Collio, the national record holder (6.55; 2008) who won the national champs on this track, and was fifth in these champs in Madrid 2005.
The only other country producing more than one semi-finalist was Finland with two qualifiers.
But if anyone is likely to break up this British – Italian medal duel it should be either Poland’s Dariusz Kuc who has clocked 6.59 this year and was second behind Cerutti this morning (6.67), or Germany’s Stefan Schwab, another 6.59 man at his best, who was runner-up with 6.64 behind Di Gregorio.
In the context of the ‘competition’ for gold which will conclude tomorrow night, there is only one man, Chambers, in the frame for the title, with the rest of the qualifiers on current form realistically battling only for silver and bronze.
Germany vs Finland with Atanasov and Rutherford ready to mix it up
With 8 metres as the automatic mark for qualification to the Long Jump final, two Germans Sebastian Bayer (8.12) and Nils Winter (8.04), and Bulgaria’s six time national champion Nikolai Atanasov (8.00m) led the qualifiers having surpassed this level.
Joining them in tomorrow night’s conclusion are two Finns, 2005 World bronze medallist Tommi Evilä (7.99) and Juha-Matti Pimiä (7.94). It was so nearly three as Evilä’s last jump by which he qualified relegated his compatriot Petteri Lax (7.92 in pool A), the European U23 silver medallist, out of the overall top-8 who now proceed to that final.
The major casualty was Greece’s Louis Tsatoumas, the world season leader with 8.20m, who continued his career record of multiple non-qualifications in major championships with another today. The prodigiously talented 27-year-old can claim a European junior title, silver at these continental indoors two years ago and a fourth place at the 2006 World Indoors but generally his CV is littered with below par performances when medals have been up for grabs. Today he could only muster 7.79, though to be fair he has recently been suffering from a virus which caused him to miss the Athens permit meeting.
France’s Salim Sdiri, the bronze medallist two years ago at these championships, also missed the cut today but his compatriot Kafetien Gomis fourth in Birmingham 2007 did make the final.
Britain’s Greg Rutherford, the 2006 European outdoor silver medallist and an Olympic finalist last summer, is sure to be in the mix for medals after qualifying well with a 7.99m PB. Polish record holder Marcin Starzak is the other man in the final after leaping 7.97.
French hopes rise
No one in the Pole Vault needed to attempt the automatic qualification height of 5.75m, as in a low key competition to make Sunday’s final 5.70 was enough to gain entry for seven of the eight finalists (and 5.65 was ok for the eighth). The day’s best performers were the French pair of Renaud Lavillenie and Romain Mesnil, the 2007 World silver medallist.
Lavillenie has been a real find for France this winter and had a clean jumping card today. The 22-year-old raised his PB (from 5.70) to lofty 5.81 in December last year and then showed that was no fluke by winning the Moscow indoor permit with the same height on 1 February.
If the Long Jump qualification was a grave yard for Greek medal hopes this morning, the Pole Vault preliminaries likewise depressed the hopes that Germany possessed for its trio of vaulters. Reigning champion Danny Ecker and Malte Mohr both failed to get through to the final, leaving Alexander Straub as the country’s only challenger (5.70).
Russian expectations also took a nose dive with Pavel Gerasimov, the 2005 World championship bronze medallist, the only one of their three-man squad to survive (5.70), and Italian fans left the Oval despondent as Giuseppe Gibilisco, the 2003 World champion, didn’t clear a height.
Majewski qualifies with ease, as expected
There were no major surprises in the men’s Shot Put qualification. Germany’s European outdoor champion Ralf Bartels with 19.94m was the best of day but with Poland’s Tomasz Majewski powering out a first round 19.86 the Olympic champion remains the clear favourite with his 21.09 PB this winter dwarfing the arsenals of all his continental opponents. The second best in Europe this year is Russia’s Pavel Sofyin who put 20.27 back in February but he could only muster 18.79 here so doesn’t make the final.
If there was a story to be found in this qualification round it was in Spanish veteran Manuel Martinez’s 19.92 put which saw the 34-year-old make the final. The career of the 2003 World Indoor champion, who took the European indoor title the year before with his personal best of 21.06, had seemed to be on the downturn but his season’s best today bucked that trend and if sustained might see the Spaniard challenge for a medal.
Kasyanov’s morning; Sebrle recovers a little
In the 60m, the opening event of the Heptathlon, European season leader Eelco Sintnicolaas of the Netherlands was the second fastest overall with a 6.99 sec dash, while Ukraine’s Oleksiy Kasyanov, seventh in Beijing last summer, held the top distinction thanks to a 6.83 clocking which won the first of two 100m sections raced.
Of the other expected contenders for this title Estonia’s Andres Raja, sixth at last winter’s World champs in Valencia sped to 7.08. Aleksey Drozdov of Russia, the European Decathlon bronze medallist, produced a 7.09 run as did another Estonian Mikk Pahapill, who won the second section. Russian champion Alek Kislov was faster, 7.07.
Defending European champion Roman Sebrle, now 34, after an illustrious career which has seen him take combined event World and Olympic titles, and set the World record for the Decathlon, is currently way off his prodigious past best and he looked laboured in his running (7.17). Germany’s 2006 World Indoor champion Andre Niklaus was even slower (7.21). Funereal in his stride was his compatriot Roland Schwarzl, the bronze medallist at these championships in 2005, who was the overall slowest of the morning (7.29).
There was a small upturn in fortunes for Sebrle in the next event which closed the ‘morning’ session of competition in the Oval at about 1.30pm this afternoon. The Czech’s 7.72m Long Jump gave him fourth place overall with 1813, just ten points short of the bronze position held by Sintnicolaas whose best leap was only 7.51.
Holding the top rung of the competition clearly after two events was Kasyanov who followed up his good sprinting with the second best jump of the day (7.85) to accumulate a total of 1966 points. The Ukrainian’s nearest pursuer is Pahapill whose 7.97 substantially elevated his challenge for a medal. The 25-year-old Estonian lies in silver with 1904pts.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
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