It was a morning of gentle sparring at the 02 Arena in Prague where the fastest men in the continent went through their paces in the opening round of the 60m dash.
There was nothing to choose between Britain’s bristling world indoor champion Richard Kilty and tearaway teammate Chijindu Ujah who both clocked 6.57 to lead the qualifiers for Sunday’s semifinals.
“That was easy,” said Kilty, whose father Kevin used to be a sprinter and is now a professional bodybuilder.
The well-built Kilty adopted a boxer’s pose after powering through the finish line, trading well-padded punches with championships mascot, Krtek, the (not-so) ‘little Mole’ who’s been cruising the infield entertaining the Prague crowds for the past two days.
He adopted something of the boxers’ manner with his post-race comments too, delivering an in-your-face warning to his rivals.
“I didn't even get into my final gear so to run 6.57 is very, very promising,” he said. “It was very easy, I started to relax after the first 20 metres.
“I wanted to remind people a little bit, but I thought that would be 6.60 with the effort I put into it. There’s massive improvements to come.
“I did not even start that great,” he added. “There were some slight technical problems, but between 50m and 60m it was very easy.
“Tomorrow should be a great battle.”
Kilty set personal bests in every round en route to his surprise world title last March, and he may need to run quicker than his Sopot winning time of 6.49 to beat Ujah who was equally comfortable clipping through his heat in the same time, despite looking hesitant out of the blocks.
“I stumbled at the start, but I caught myself,” he said.
Ujah – known to his friends as ‘CJ’ – won the European junior 100m title in 2013, and burst onto the senior scene last May when he became the only fifth British man to break 10 seconds, clocking 9.96 in Hengelo.
The 21-year-old Londoner is described as a predator by his training group – “because I eat everything up in training”. He was a bit kinder to our friend Krtek, however, exchanging double high-fives with the furry clapper as he left the track.
Ujah has been a finallist at world youth and junior championships, and won a silver medal at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games, but this is his first senior championships.
“I am looking forward to doing better tomorrow,” he said. “This is serious. It is definitely new for me but I am confident.”
German pair Lucas Jakubczyk and Julian Reus were the best of the rest, five hundredths slower than the Brits.
Hanna Knyazyeva broke the Israeli record to top the list of qualifiers for tomorrow’s triple jump final. The former Ukrainian added 9cm to her best when she landed at 14.40m. Event favourite Yekaterina Koneva of Russia also went through automatically.
While Dutch teammate Dafne Schippers was scorching down the track in the women’s 60m heats, defending heptathlon champion Eelco Sintnicolaas made a somewhat lower key start to his Prague campaign.
The Gothenburg gold medallist lies fourth after two events, 66 points behind Russia’s Ilya Shkurenyov who leads with 1894 after leaping a long jump PB of 7.78m.
Henrik Ingebrigtsen made his first appearance of the day in the men’s 1500m heats. The Norwegian warmed up for tonight’s 3000m final by finishing second behind Britain’s Charlie Grice to go through to tomorrow’s final.
His younger brother Filip was less successful , finishing last in his heat, won by Czech favourite Jakub Holusa whose impressive burst over the last lap delighted the home crowd.
Homiyu Tesfaye won the speedy first heat in 3:40.05, the quickest of the day, while another Briton Chris O’Hare won the second in 3:41.83.
There was more delight for the 02 fans at the end of he session when Jaroslav Bába produced a clean series to qualify in the men’s high jump.
The 30-year-old Dukla Prague athlete was an Olympic bronze medallist in Athens when he was 19, and a European under-23 champion back in 2005, but has never won a senior title.
High hopes indeed for tomorrow’s final.