Olympic champion Yemisi Ogunleye set an outright lifetime best of 20.27m to win the shot put title on the first evening of the German Indoor Championships in Dortmund on Friday (21) evening.
Ogunleye produced this mark in the first round of the final, adding eight centimetres to her previous lifetime best set at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow where she won silver.
"I'm super happy and grateful that I was able to do that today. Today a man ran past me and whispered to me: '20 meters...' At first I thought to myself: I don't really want to throw that until the European and the World Indoor Championships when it really counts. But then I thought to myself: Why not?!" said Ogunleye as quoted by Leichtathletik.de.
Ogunleye won by over a metre from Katharina Maisch who also set a lifetime best of 19.10m in the first round with Alina Kenzel third with a season’s best of 18.36m.
The European Athletics Indoor Championships take place in Apeldoorn between 6-9 March and the women’s shot put is promising to be one of the highlights with Ogunleye poised to go head-to-head with Dutch favourite Jessica Schilder, the two-time European outdoor champion, for the title.
7:36.38 for Almgren at the Swedish Indoor Championships
European 10km record-holder Andreas Almgren demonstrated his range by winning the 3000m title at the Swedish Indoor Championships in Växjö with a solo 7:36.38, just outside his national indoor record of 7:34.31 which dates back to 2022.
Almgren is targeting the 3000m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn where he is likely to come up against reigning three-time champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen along with home favourite Niels Laros.
On the first day of the Spanish Indoor Championships in Madrid, Jaime Guerra won the long jump with a solid 8.14m.
At the Ukrainian Indoor Championships in Kyiv, European 20km race walk bronze medallist Lyudmila Olyanovska won the 5000m race walk with a Ukrainian record and world lead of 20:26.26. Veteran Hanna Plotitsyna, 38, also won the 60m hurdles title in 8.07.
Steven Mills for European Athletics