National records in Estonia, Israel and Turkey

Olympic discus champion Gerd Kanter of Estonia.

At the final meeting of the Estonia’s BIGBANK Kuldliiga series, high jumper Anna Iljustsenko cleared an Estonian record of 1.96m in Viljandi on Tuesday.

She added one centimetre to her own record set last year when she cleared the new record height at her first attempt before failing at 2.00m.

Her achievement also threw up an interesting statistic.

Iljustsenko is only 1.68m tall so she has now cleared 28 centimetres above her own head height.

No woman shorter than her has gone higher although it should be noted that Bulgaria’s Emilia Dragieva and United States Yolanda Henry, who both also are in the record books at standing 1.68m tall, went over 2.00m during their careers.

After winning all the meetings in the series, Iljustsenko also pocketed the €20000 jackpot.

Another great mark was registered in the men’s long jump by Portugal’s Marcos Chuva, with the 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships silver medallist adding a massive 31 centimetres to his best when he flew out to 8.34m with the help of a 1.8 metres-per-second breeze on his back.

It is the second best European mark this year, and the sixth best in the world in 2011, as well as being only two centimetres short of the Portuguese record of 8.36m which has stood to Carlos Calado since 1997.

Second was France’s Salim Sdiri with a wind-assisted (2.9 mps) 8.00m.

Two other hugely popular Estonian wins were achieved by Marek Niit, who won the 400m in 46.11, while Tiindrek Nurme become his country’s first sub-four minute miler when he won over the classic distance in 3:59.74.

Local hero and 2008 Olympic champion Gerd Kanter won the discus with 65.46m while another Estonian win went to Risto Matas in the javelin with a personal best of 81.56m.

Russia’s 2011 European Athletics Junior Championship high jump gold medallist Nikita Anishchenkov returned to Estonia a little more than two weeks after winning his title in Tallinn and cleared 2.26m to not only remain unbeaten in 2011 but also take the significant scalp of his compatriot and reigning world champion Yaroslav Rybakov, who could only go over 2.20m.

There were two British victories in the women’s horizontal jumps as Shara Proctor won the long jump with a wind-assisted 6.71m and Yamila Aldama took the honours in the triple jump when she went out 14.20m.

Ukraine’s Natalya Pigida won the women’s 400 m in 51.99 while France’s Samuel Coco-Viloin clocked 13.79 to win the 110m hurdles.

Tuesday was a good day for high jumping elsewhere in Europe as Ma´ayan Foreman equaled the Israeli high jump record on home soil in Neurin.

Record holder Danielle Frenkel was second with 1.85m; although it should be noted that 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships finalist Frenkel also jumped 1.94m indoors this winter.

Turkey’s 19-year-old Mehmet Guzel bounced back from the disappointment of failing to get out of his heat at last month’s European Athletics U23 Championships when he clocked a national 400m record when he sped to a time of 46.18 at a meeting in Ankara on Tuesday.

In a trial for the World Championships, a Turkish men’s 4x400m – without Guzel – also set a national record 3:03.92 and qualified for Daegu. The composition of the team was Ali Kayas (the former 400m record holder with 46.34 on 30 July), Halit Kilic, Yavuz Can and Serdar Tamac.