Charlotta Fougberg ran her fastest time of the season to delight the home crowd at the Folksam Grand Prix in Gothenburg on Saturday.
The European 3000m steeplechase silver medallist was one of the star performers as she won in 9:46.06 from Ukraine’s Mariya Shatalova (9:49.54) and Kenya’s Lydia Chepkurui (9:55.18).
This European Athletics Outdoor Classic meeting saw a series of Swedish victories and for Fougberg, a fine run as she heads towards a winter where she will look to prepare for the Amsterdam 2016 European Athletics Championships and the Olympic Games in Rio in August.
Back in Zurich last summer, Fougberg celebrated arguably the best moment of her career when she finished second at the 2014 European Athletics Championships (9:30.16) behind Germany’s Ante Moldner-Schmidt (9:29.43).
It has been a summer to remember for Great Britain’s Shara Proctor and she maintained her fine form to win the long jump.
Proctor is fresh from her world championship silver in Beijing last month when she broke her national record with a jump of 7.07m to become the first Briton to crack the seven metres barrier.
Here she won with 6.62m after an opening effort of 6.54m as she beat Sweden’s Khaddi Sagnia (6.53m) and British teammate Abigail Irozuru (6.34m).
Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski is one of Europe’s leading 800m runners and this time, going a bit further, he won the 1000m (2:19.52) from Djibouti’s Abdi Waiss Mouhyadin (2:20.28) and Sweden’s Kalle Berglund (2:20.63).
Sweden had other 'A' event victories in the men’s discus with Axel Harstedt (62.80m) and women’s 200m with Matilda Hellqvist (24.41m), high jump with Ebba Jungmark (1.83m), pole vault with Michaela Meijer (4.38m), discus with Sofia Larsson (55.62m) and hammer with Tracey Andersson (68.34m).
Norway’s Tale Orving (13.65) triumphed in the 100m hurdles and Italy’s Maria Benedicta Chigbolu (53.57) won the 400m.
[PHOTO src='1277516' size='mediumLandscape' align='right']
Tamberi’s home triumph
The second European Athletics Permit Meeting of the weekend was in Italy on Sunday with the XXIX Meeting Citta di Padova - and it proved a good afternoon for high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi.
The leading Italian won with 2.30m as he beat Russia’s Sergey Mudrov (2.20m) and Lithuanian Raivydas Stanys (2.15m).
On the track, Milan Ristic, of Serbia, ran 13.93 to record a fine win over France’s Thomas Martinot-Lagarde (13.96) in the 110m hurdles, while Russia’s Sergey Polyanskiy (7.85m) won the men’s long jump and Ukraine’s Maksym Bohdan, the 2013 European silver medallist, was first in the javelin (77.88m).
In the women’s long jump, Russian Yuliya Pidluzhnaya put down a first round marker of 6.53m that the rest could not reach. Belarusian Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova was the closest, with 6.49m in round five to finish second, with Ukraine’s Krystyna Hryshutyna (6.41m) third.
Aliona Dubitskaya, of Belarus, won the shot put (17.84m) from her fifth attempt as she beat Italian Chiara Rosa (17.47m).