The final entries for the European Athletics Team Championships Third League League in Malta on 24-25 June are now available here.
The throws could take pride of place with the men’s shot put featuring a duel between Bosnia’s 2013 European indoor silver medallist Hamza Alic, who reached a personal best of 20.82m earlier this month, and another 20-metre plus performer in the shape of Luxembourg’s 2015 European U23 silver medallist Bob Bertemes.
Azerbaijan’s 2016 European Championships bronze medallist Hanna Skydan will be in action in the women’s hammer.
Georgia’s Lasha Torgvaidze, now 24, recently won his national long jump title with a personal best of 7.92m but had been better known as a triple jumper up until now, with international credentials including a fourth place finish at the 2015 European Athletics U23 Championships, so it will be very interesting to see what he can produce in his ‘second event’ in Malta.
Torgvaidze is concentrating on the long jump so the mantle of men’s triple jump favourite falls to Armenia’s former European U20 champion Levon Aghasyan, who will want to redeem himself after three no jumps in qualifying at the European Athletics Indoor Championships earlier this year.
The concentration of talent in the Third League is predominantly in the field events but one track athlete whose name catches the eye is Luxembourg’s 800m runner Charline Mathias, a 2:01.30 performer at her best who holds no less than seven national records from 400m indoors to 3000m indoors, and who wore her small county’s colours at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.