It might be only a few weeks into the outdoor season but Ukrainian athletes are warming up very well indeed.
At the Ukrainian Throwing Cup in Kiev, Hlib Piskunov, 16, showed his outstanding potential with a personal best which extended his world youth lead.
He is quite a talent, having won gold at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing last year with 82.65m.
But 2015 has seen impressive progression which reached another level in Kiev.
He had achieved 82.96m in Mukachevo in February and then the world youth lead of 83.11m in Halle just under two weeks ago but this time he broke his personal best twice.
He began with 84.30m and in the second round took that to 84.56m, a national youth record, while in the under-23 event, Serhiy Reheda, the 2011 world youth bronze medallist, won with 71.86m.
In the javelin, Oleksandr Pyatnytsya is one of Ukraine’s leading medallists after winning silver at the Olympic Games in London in 2012 and he triumphed here in the men’s event with 81.63m as Hanna Hatsko-Fedusova won the women’s with 56.51m. The under-23 victory went to Maksym Bohdan with 80.66m.
Meanwhile Oksana Okuneva, Ukraine’s high jump silver medallist from the European Athletics U23 Championships in 2011, is enjoying competing again.
In 2014 she was second with 1.95m at the European Athletics Team Championships in Braunschweig, missing out on gold as Russia’s Marita Kuchina won on countback, and she was then sixth at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich.
Injury forced her to miss the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Prague but she has cleared 1.85m at the IAAF Diamond League in Doha and 1.88m at the world challenge in Beijing as she makes her gradual comeback.
Okuneva said: 'Because of that injury we started preparation for the summer season later than usual. That's why I can't plan any results or achievements now.'
Her next competition is the Grand Prix in Opole on Sunday followed by the Diamond League in Rome on June 4 and the Ukrainian Team Championships on June 8-10.