Belgian club RESC prevailed in the men’s division at the ECCC Track & Field Group B in Tampere, Finland on Saturday (25) with 151 points by a safe margin from AD Mass Ljubljana (134.5 points) and Maccabi Tel Aviv (130).
But there was a clear win for the team based in the Slovenian capital on the women’s side as AD Mass Ljubljana accrued 136 points across the programme ahead of Rotterdam Atletiek (111 points) and SK Dukla Banska Bystrica (110 points).
Two of the standout names on AD Mass Ljubljana’s team were Maja Mihalinec and Marusa Mismas and they both made handsome contributions to the team tally. Mihalinec took individual wins in the 100m (11.62) and 200m (23.48) before anchoring the team to victory in the 4x100m relay in 45.72.
Mismas matched Mihalinec’s efforts by taking two individual wins on the same afternoon. After winning the 800m in 2:06.41 ahead of Rotterdam Atletiek’s Marissa Damink (2:07.03), Mismas coasted to a comfortable win in the 3000m steeplechase in 10:29.48 - more than one minute slower than her national record of 9:28.61.
Mismas would have been favoured in the 5000m as well but club honours were left to youngster Klara Lukan who won in a solo 16:11.34. There was another notable performance from Neja Filipic who went out to 6.14m in the last round of the long jump to upset Slovakian veteran Jana Veldakova with 6.06m.
The best individual performance of the day came from Veldakova’s teammate and clubmate Martina Hrasnova who had four throws over 70 metres in the hammer which was capped off by a season’s best of 72.04m. And the best race of the day was the women’s 1500m in which Amela Terzic outsprinted European 10,000m champion Lonah Chemtai Salpeter - 4:18.33 to 4:20.51.
Another European champion was in action in Tampere and European marathon champion Koen Naert contributed a full complement of points for RESC in the 5000m, winning in 14:07.20 by three seconds ahead of fellow marathon specialist Maru Teferi in 14:10.43.
There were four more individual victories including Asmati Badji winning the 400m in 47.42 while clubmate Romain Nicodeme won the 400m hurdles in 51.44.
Full results here.