Croatian discus thrower Sandra Perkovic and Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi have been voted European Athlete of the Month for July.
Voting for European Athlete of the Month took place through our European Athletics Twitter and Facebook pages over the past week. Athletes with the most combined Twitter ‘retweets’ and Facebook ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ were crowned the winners.
With more than 1,500 combined likes, retweets & shares, Perkovic was the winner on the women’s side having claimed her fourth consecutive European discus title with a distance of 69.97m and also won at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in London with 69.94m.
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She enters Rio as the favourite to defend the Olympic title she won in London 2012 as she owns the four best throws in the world this year.
Meanwhile, Tamberi won the men’s voting with an overwhelming 6,500 facebook likes & shares. He showed his strength by soaring to his first European title in front of the delirious Dutch crowd with 2.32m.
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In Amsterdam he spoke of his plans to go higher and trying to break 2.40m has really been his target. He followed that up by setting a new 2.39m national record at the Diamond League meeting in Monaco.
Unfortunately for the Italian, he badly injured himself on his next attempt at 2.41m and will not be present at the Olympic Games in Rio where he was to be a strong medal contender.