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Sotero breaks Spanish U20 discus record on his season's debut

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Only four days into the decade and Spain’s Yasiel Brayan Sotero is celebrating another athletics landmark in his impressive young career.

The European U20 discus champion, who only turned 18 last week, produced the furthest throw of his life on Saturday (4) in Gran Tarajal, Fuerteventura, as he sent the U20 1.75kg implement soaring to a national U20 record of 64.68m to add exactly one metre to his previous mark.

Competing in the Canary Islands, where he has lived since 2014, Sotero set a brilliant landmark for what could be another memorable year ahead.

The World Athletics U20 Championships take place in Nairobi, Kenya in July and Sotero will be looking to make it three golds in a row after winning the European U18 title in 2017 which was followed up by the European U20 title in 2018.

At the last edition of the World U20 Championships in Tampere in 2018, the title was won by Jamaica’s Kai Chang with 62.36m. Sotero has already threw more than two metres further than that in the infancy of the 2020 season.

Abadia makes the podium in Amorebieta

One week after finishing third at the San Silvestre Vallecana 10K in Madrid, Antonio Abadia improved to second at the Cross Internacional Zornotza, a European Athletics Cross Country Permit Meeting, in Amorebieta on Sunday (5).

As Ethiopia’s Enyew Mekonnen won the senior men’s 10.3km in 33:32, Abadia fended off Kenya’s Isaac Yego in the home straight to finish second - 33:41 to 33:42.

 

Abadia’s teammates Carlos Mayo and Fernando Carro, who were also part of Spain’s bronze medal-winning team at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon last month, rounded out the top five.

The Spanish contingent wasn’t quite as competitive in the senior women’s 8.7km. Elena Garcia Grimau was the leading home finisher in fourth in 31:48 behind Ethiopian winner Tsige Abreha in 29:54.

Johnson-Thompson makes her season’s debut in Miramas

World heptathlon champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson opened her indoor season in Miramas on Saturday where the Montpelier-based Brit cleared 1.80m in the high jump.

While the Olympics in Tokyo will be her top priority this year, Johnson-Thompson has yet to announce whether she will defend her world indoor pentathlon crown in Nanjing in March.

The English Combined Events Championships were taking place concurrently in Sheffield where European U20 bronze medallist Holly Mills - who also finished fourth in the heptathlon - scored 4261 points to win the pentathlon title. Mills concluded her series with an outright lifetime best of 2:14.46 in the 800m.

 

Making a good start to the winter can do wonders for confidence and Switzerland's Loic Gasch will surely feel that after an impressive debut in Clarholz, Germany, on Sunday.

A finalist at the European Championships in Berlin in 2018, Gasch triumphed at the Clarholz High Jump meeting with 2.27m on his second attempt to smash his outright personal best of 2.26m. His previous indoor lifetime best was a modest 2.21m. His performance was also the best mark by a Swiss high jumper for 17 years.

Staying with high jump and staying in Germany, Slovakia’s Matus Bubenik cleared 2.20m for victory in Essing.

Course records broken over 10km in Nice

France’s Raphael Montoya and Liv Westphal broke the course records at the Nice Prom Classic 10km.

Montoya won the men’s race in 28:37 while Westphal clocked 32:09 to win the women’s race just one week after breaking the French record with 31:15 at the Corrida de Houilles. And in ninth in the men’s race, Valentin Bresc broke the French U20 record with 29:27.

Elsewhere, Maria Czakova once more showed her dominance on the Slovakian walking scene as she won her seventh indoor title with victory in the 3000m race walk in Banska Bystrica in 13:03.52 as Miroslav Uradnik lifted the men’s 5000m crown in 19:57.28.




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