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Switzerland, Slovenia and Portugal name their top stars for 2017

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Switzerland, Slovenia and Portugal all named their Athletes of the Year in a variety of ceremonies on Saturday.

At the 2nd Swiss Athletics Night in Ittigen, the winners were 400m hurdlers Lea Sprunger and former European champion Kariem Hussein.

It was the first time that Sprunger had won Switzerland’s top athletics honour, coming after a season in which she finished fifth at the IAAF World Championships London 2017 in August.

By contrast, it was the third time Hussein had won the title, following on from his triumphs in 2014 and 2015, earned as a result of also making the world championships final.

Both athletes spoke at the gala of their desire to battle for gold at their main target of next year, the Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships.

The multi-talented Géraldine Ruckstuhl, who took the silver medal in the European Athletics U20 Championships heptathlon in July, won the junior award after two Swiss records in the heptathlon and another in the javelin.

Her coach Rolf Battig took the Coach of the Year award in recognition of the work he has done with Ruckstuhl.

The women’s 4x100m relay team of Ajla Del Ponte, Sarah Atcho, Mujinga Kambundji (STB) and Salomé Kora took the team accolade after setting a Swiss national record when finishing fifth in the world championships final.

Max Plüss, who retired after 30 years as the director of the Lucerne international meeting, was honoured for his decades of involvement in Swiss athletics by being presented with his European Athletics Member Federation Award following on from the announcement that he was a recipient at last month’s European Athletics Congress.

Javelin thrower Martina Ratej and 400m runner Luka Janežič took the Slovenian Athlete of the Year honours at their federation's gala and award ceremony in Radenci.

Ratej, now 36, won at the European Throwing Cup in March and went on to make the world championships final while Janežič won the European U23 400m title and finished the year third on the European lists over one lap of the track after clocking a national record of 44.84 at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Monaco.

Rok Predanič received the award for the best coach. Among others, he guides Janežič and Slovenian women’s 400m record holder Anita Horvat.

The General Assembly of the Federação Portuguesa de Atletismo – the Portuguese Athletics Federation – meeting in Castelo Branco on Saturday voted unanimously to honour Inês Henriques and Nelson Évora as their Athletes of the Year.

Henriques set two world records in the 50km race walk in 2017, the second coming when she won the gold medal at the world championships.

Évora, the two-time defending European indoor triple jump champion and 2008 Olympic gold medallist, is still going strong at the age of 33 and won the bronze medal in his specialist event in London.




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