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Abele and Schafer underline Berlin medal potential with wins in Ratingen

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  • Abele and Schafer underline Berlin medal potential with wins in Ratingen

Arthur Abele has re-emerged as a medal contender for this summer’s Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships with gold medal favourite Kevin Mayer from France there to watch his every step.

Abele completed his first decathlon since the Olympic Games in 2016 with victory at the Ratingen Mehrkampf Meeting at the weekend, scoring 8481 points to move to third on the world lists.

World champion Mayer has yet to complete the full 10 events this season, here testing the water impressively in a selection of disciplines. He started his weekend by breaking his 100m personal best of 10.70 with 10.66 and he was in brilliant form in the throwing events, recording 15.86m in the discus and extended his discus personal best of 50.13m to 52.38m.

Along with his two PBs, Mayer just missed his lifetime bests in the 110m hurdles with 13.78 and in the 400m with 48.26. He also cleared 5.20m in the pole vault.

But the return of Abele, 31, the 2015 European Indoor heptathlon silver medallist, will only add spice to the mix with Berlin so close.

He broke two individual personal bests - with 48.40 in the 400 and 15.93m in the shot put - and while he may need to be nearer his overall PB of 8605 to be in with a medal chance in Berlin, he will have the huge crowd behind him which can be worth so much.

Abele triumphed from fellow German Manuel Eitel, with 8121 points, one point ahead of Sweden’s Marcus Nilsson, with both men breaking their personal best.

Even though Rico Freimuth has ended his season and Kai Kazmirek was a non-finisher, the strength of German multi-eventing was on show as Tim Nowak (8057), Ituah Enahoro (8048) and Florian Obst (8012) also broke the 8000-point barrier.

It could be quite a time in Berlin for the German multi-eventers as the capital co-hosts the first multi-sports European Championships with Glasgow.

Carolin Schafer, the world silver medallist in London last summer, won the heptathlon with 6549 points from Austria's Ivona Dadic with 6413 and Germany’s Mareike Arndt, last year’s national champion, with 6169.

Schafer has sought advice from Olympic champion Thomas Rohler in her bid to improve in the javelin and their collaboration over the off-season is paying dividends. She improved her PB from 50.73m to 53.69m en route to back-to-back victories in Ratingen.

 

European leads and national records galore in Bern

A new international fixture in Bern on Saturday will be long remembered for a series of superb performances, European leads - and national records.

The Citius Meeting in the Swiss capital produced a brilliant national record as Alex Wilson lowered his Swiss 200m mark of 20.29 to 20.26 as he beat Brazil’s Rodrigo do Nascimento (20.46) and the Netherlands’ Solomon Bockarie (20.51).

There was further home successes in the sprints for Mujinga Kambundji, who won the 100m in 11.23 while two emerging prospect of Swiss athletics also impressed. European U20 110m hurdles champion Jason Joseph improved his Swiss U23 record to 13.46 and European U20 3000m champion Delia Sclabas won the 800m in a national U20 record of 2:03.93.

The 4x400m relays set the standard for the rest of Europe.

Great Britain’s women – Emily Diamond, Finette Agyapong, Amy Allcock and Zoey Clark – won in a European lead of 3:28.59 from Belgium’s quartet of Margo van Puyvelde, Hanne Claes, Cynthia Bolingo and Camille Laus, who broke the 38-year-old national record with 3:29.06.

Italy’s men – Daniele Corsa, Michele Tricca, Vladimir Aceti and Davide Re – are also top of the European lists after winning in 3:02.11 from Britain (3:03.28) and the Netherlands (3:03.51).

Novac improves Romanian javelin record

The European javelin scene is one of the most competitive in the sport and a new name to throw into the Berlin picture is Romania’s Alexandru Novac.

Fifth at last year’s European Athletics U23 Championships in Bydgoszcz, the 21-year-old had broken the national record two months before that with 82.90m and now he has gone even further by reaching 83.02m in Conegliano, Italy, on Saturday (16).

It may not be enough just yet to threaten the likes of Germany’s world champion Johannes Vetter and Olympic champion Thomas Rohler but breaking each barrier is so crucial and now he will now surely target 84 metres.

World champion Mariya Lasitskene is now unbeaten in 43 high jump finals after winning with 1.94m in Opole, Poland and in Ried, Austria, Lukas Weisshaidinger won the discus at home with 65.55m as Poland´s Ewa Swoboda won the 100m in 11.24.

France’s Clemence Calvin is making her marathon debut at the European Championships in Berlin and what a way to warm up by breaking the 17-year-old national 10km road record.

Calvin achieved that at the 28th edition of the Corrida de Langueux on Saturday where she won in 31:20, beating Yamna Belkacem’s time of 32:00.




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