Castellon and Fenerbahce take junior club crowns
Spain’s Playas de Castellon and Turkey’s Fenerbahce Spor Kulubu came out on top of two thrillingly tight contests at the European Champions Club Cup Track and Field Juniors Group A match in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz on Saturday.
The men’s pre-event favourites Castellon, second last year in Moscow, justified their status to win by two points from Fenerbahce but the Turkish team took the women’s competition on the basis of having more individual victories after finishing level on 80 points along with Serbia’s AC Novi Beograd and the Czech Republic’s AK Olymp Brno.
En-route to their title, the Spaniards had three particularly impressive victories.
Aitor Fernandez, last year’s European Athletics Championships 5000m bronze medallist, won the 3000m in 8:29.24 without too much difficultly, giving him a confidence boost ahead of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in December, when he is likely to start as one of the junior men’s medal contenders in the Portuguese coastal venue of Albufeira.
Triple jumper Vicente Docavo, who has a best of 15.99m to his name went out to 14.79m with his very first jump of the competition fouled his second attempt and then passed the remaining two rounds as no one could get close to him.
Castellon had also signed up the Polish junior discus champion Michał Mikulicz, a finalist at the 2009 European Athletics Junior Championships, and it proved to be a worthwhile acquisition as he got maximum points, his best effort coming in the third round with 56.26m.
Mikulicz won by more than two metres and all three of his valid throws went over 55 metres and were further than his nearest rival.
On a day when the strong winds blowing into the runners’ faces down the home straight made good times hard to come by, local 400m man Dawid Rumiński gave the home crowd something to cheer when the Bydgoszcz athlete won his specialist event in a personal best of 48.83, signing off on his junior career on a high note.
It was a good day for Polish men’s sprinting as Tomasz Kluczynski, a Youth Olympic Games 200m finalist, also the longer sprint in 21.77 to add to his earlier 100m victory in 11.06 and also give the host club plenty of points.
Fenerbahce’s first women’s winner of the day was hammer thrower Kivilcim Kaya who set a championship record of 61.93m with her second round effort, to win by nearly 10 metres. In fact, all four of the 2009 World Youth Championships silver medallist’s throws went over 59 metres.
Like her team mate, Gamze Bulut is still only 18 and a long-range medal prospect for the 2011 European Athletics Junior Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, next summer and she won the 3000m steeplechase impressively in 10:56.07.
Adding to the Fenerbahce list of winners which ultimately proved to be the deciding factor, Nimet Karakus completed a 100m and 200m double for the Turkish team, with wins in 12.41 and 25.18, giving an indication of the difficult conditions as the 17-year-old ran a national youth record of 24.10 for the longer sprint in June.
Second-placed Beograd kept close to their Turkish rivals throughout the day.
Amela Terzic, the 2009 World Youth Championships 1500m bronze medallist, ran over 3000m for the first time this season and notched up a good win in 9:20.32, coming home 250m ahead of the opposition.
Serbian javelin thrower Marija Vučenović, fourth at last year’s World Youth Championships who has thrown over 50 metres regularly this season found 47.12m sufficient to win her event.
Going into the last event, the 4x400m, Fenerbahce lead with 77 points with Brno second on 76 points and Beograd third with 75.
However, despite the best efforts by Brno and Beograd, the Turkish team hung on to finish fourth in a race won by the British club Blackheath and Bromley and claim the title, the first time that victory in the women’s contest has gone to any club other than a Russian one since 2000.
Results:
Men
1. Playas de Castellon (ESP) 95 points
2.Fenerbahce Spor Kulubu (TUR) 93
3. Shaftersbury Barnet Harriers (GBR) 86
4. AC Sirmijum (SRB) 86
5. TJ Sokol Opava (CZE) 69
6. SL WKS Zawisza Bydgoszcz (POL) 47
7. Atl. Bergamo 1959 Creberg (ITA) 44
Women
1. Fenerbahce Spor Kulubu (TUR) 80 points
2. AC Novi Beograd (SRB) 80
3. AK Olymp Brno (CZE) 80
4. Blackheath and Bromley (GBR) 62
5. SL WKS Zawisza Bydgoszcz 56
6. CA Benacantil Puerto de Alicante (ESP) 38
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