Poland’s Ewa Swoboda sped to a world junior indoor 60m record of 7.07 at the Copernicus Cup meeting in Torun to provide the highlight of the European Athletic Indoor Permit Meeting on Friday.
The 18-year-old European junior 100m champion, who hails from the town of Zory in southern Poland close to the Czech border, was quickly into her running and pulled away to win by more than two metres to upstage her senior rivals on home soil.
She took 0.02 off the former world junior indoor record, which had stood since 1999 and 0.06 off her own European junior indoor and Polish senior indoor record, set last month in Luxembourg.
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'The thing that helped me most is that it's an incredibly fast track in Torun and it was great to hear the cheering of my trainer Iwona Krupa and my manager. However, this result didn't come from nowhere. It was the result of millions of workouts, blood sweat and tears and plenty of patience from my coach,' said Swoboda.
'Now I want to get some sleep and when I wake up I'll see whether it was all a dream,' the delighted and excited teenager told local reporters.
Her time also equalled the 2016 world-leading mark and two more yearly world leads also fell in Torun, both to Polish middle distance runners.
Joanna Jozwik clocked 2:00.12 in the 800m as she held off Ukraine’s 2013 European Indoor champion Nataliya Lupu, who was second with 2:00.36 while Great Britain’s Jenny Meadows came home third in 2:01.61.
In the 1500m, Renata Plis ran 4:07.38 to finish ahead of Danuta Urbanik, who was second in a personal best of 4:09.89.
The men’s shot put produced the same top three and in the same order as last week’s European Athletics Indoor Permit meeting in Lodz, with this winter’s revelation Michal Haratyk showing good high-level consistency with by going over 21 metres again, winning with an effort of 21.04m in the second round.
Teenager Konrad Bukowiecki was second and just 13cm away from his recent world junior indoor record with 20.45m while two-time Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski was third again with 20.41m.
The plethora of Polish wins in Torun continued with Robert Sobera clearing 5.77m to win the pole vault on count back from 2015 world championship medallist Piotr Lisek, who also cleared 5.77m on his first attempt but had failures earlier in the competition.
Two-time European indoor 800m champion Adam Kszczot got to the front on the penultimate circuit and won over four laps of the Toruń Sports Hall, stopping the clock in his specialist event in 1:46.18, a time only he and two Americans have beaten this year.
Urszula Gardzieleo won the high jump with 1.92m, equalling her personal best, while Anna Jagaciak bounded out to an indoor best of 13.95m to win the triple jump.
The best performances from the overseas athletes came in the men’s 60m, which was won by US sprinter Joe Morris in 6.56.
Hungary’s Balazs Baji won the men’s 60m hurdles in 7.60 while Croatia’s Andrea Ivancevic took the women’s 60m hurdles in 8.05, having run 8.03 in her heat.
Friday also saw a second European Athletics Indoor Permit Meeting in the Austrian city of Linz.
The Gugl Indoor meeting had a very entertaining and close 400m race, which was won by Slovenia’s Luka Janezic 46.32, just 0.01 ahead of Türkiye’s Yavuz Can, both men setting national indoor records.
Two-time European indoor 60m hurdles champion Alina Talay, from Belarus, equalled her season’s best over the barrier when winning in 7.97.
Slovakia’s Jana Veldakova was the best in the long jump with 6.45m while Maja Mihalinec, of Slovenia, won the 60m in 7.28.
In the men’s field events, Bahamian high jumper Jamal Wilson improved his career best to 2.31m to triumph in his preferred event.