Olympic and European champion Miltiadis Tentoglou won his third successive men’s long jump title at the Balkan Athletics Championships in Volos, Greece on Saturday, producing a brilliant championship record of 8.36m (-0.3m/s).
The Greek star was completely unflustered by the likely challenge of Bulgaria’s European indoor champion Bozhidar Sarâboyukov, securing victory with his opening jump.
Tentoglou made two more half-hearted attempts before passing on the final three rounds. His winning mark surpassed the long-standing championship record of 8.25m, set by former European record-holder Nenad Stekić from Serbia in 1979 when he was competing for Yugoslavia.
Sarâboyukov could never quite find his best form and was actually pushed into the bronze-medal position by Serbia’s 19-year-old Luka Bošković, who produced a brilliant personal best of 8.19m (-0.4m/s) in the final round to beat the Bulgarian to silver by 15cm.
Olympic gold medallist Stefanidi wins gold
Rio 2016 Olympic champion Aikaterini Stefanidi won the women’s pole vault on countback from fellow Greek Ariádni Adamopoúlou after both cleared 4.48m. It was the highest clearance for the 36-year-old since returning to competition following a year-long hiatus.
The women’s 3000m saw European U20 5000m silver medallist Edibe Yağız sprint to victory in a tactical 9:36.27.
Her Turkish teammate Esra Türkmen claimed a significant victory in the women’s javelin with a personal best of 61.10m in the second round, relegating 2022 European champion Eliza Tzengko to silver with 57.88m.
There was a rare victory for Moldova in the women’s 3000m steeplechase which was won comfortably by Andreea Stavila-Grosu in a personal best of 9:40.41.
Bulgaria and Austria won the respective 100m finals, with Hristo Iliev taking the men’s title in 10.25 (1.3m/s) and Magdalena Lindner winning the women’s race in 11.40 (0.6m/s).
The second day of action from Volos will be livestreamed on the European Athletics website from 16:45 CEST on Sunday (21 June).