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| French hero Christophe Lemaitre stormed through to the men's 60m semi-final on Saturday. |
Triple European outdoor champion Christophe Lemaitre reminded everyone of his natural sprint gifts by blasting to the fastest qualification time in the opening round of the men’s 60m.
To the delight of the Parisian supporters the 20-year-old French athlete headed the qualifiers for tonight’s semi-finals recording a non-too-shabby 6.59m to clinch heat three despite getting away to a characteristic sluggish start.
Defending champion Dwain Chambers was less impressive in heat four. The Briton never got into his usual rhythm and wound up third in heat five in 6.71 – 0.01 behind the winner Jonathan Astrand, the Finnish champion. With the top four from each heat automatically qualifying Chambers advances to this afternoon’s semi-finals but will want to find more.
Portugal’s vastly experienced Francis Obikwelu gave a gentle nudge that his title-winning intentions should not be ignored with an eye-catching victory in heat two. The 2004 Olympic 100m silver medallist has not shown great form prior to these championships, but a season’s best 6.61 clocking, easing up, offered compelling evidence he is fit and firing.
Switzerland’s unheralded Pascal Mancini was a noteworthy winner of heat one, slicing 0.07 from his personal best to power to victory in 6.61. Surprisingly, German champion Christian Blum trailed home sixth in 6.80 and was eliminated.
US-based Latvian Rolands Arajs took a close-run heat four in 6.70 as just 0.02 covered the first four athletes.
In the women’s 60m heats, second fastest this winter Mariya Ryemyem of Ukraine claimed top spot, breaking the beam in 7.17, just 0.02 off her lifetime best. In heat two season leader and compatriot Olesya Povh scored an emphatic victory in 7.18 while third place on times went to the winner of the opening heat in 7.21, medal hope Ezinne Ekparaebo of Norway.
French hopes, Myriam Soumaré and Véronique Mang both clocked 7.27 to go through to the afternoon semis comfortably.
World champion Anna Rogowska remains on course to complete a full set of European indoor medals. The Pole, who snared silver in 2005 and bronze in Birmingham two years later, sailed over the automatic qualifying height of 4.55 this morning having taken just one warm-up attempt at 4.45.
Helen Clitheroe remains the woman to beat in the 3000m final tomorrow after she stamped her authority on the second semi-final this morning. The European number one took up the running with 12 laps to go and wound up the pace till she had only Layes Abdullayeva for company at the finish.
The Azerbaijani sprinted past in the final straight to record the quickest time of the round, 9:00.80, as the 37-year-old Briton jogged home in 9:01.45.
Poland’s 2005 and 2007 champion Lidia Chojecka was a safe qualifier in third but Türkiye’s Barcelona 5000m champion Alemitu Bekele dropped out when she was cut adrift by the leaders, and the other Polish hope Sylwia Ejdys stepped off the track after two laps clutching her left hip.
There were no such surprises in the first heat where Dolores Checa of Spain led from the gun, taking two Russians and a Turk clear of the rest.
Sultan Haydar stayed with her to the bell and blasted away to win in a personal best 9:03.50. The dawdling Yelena Zadorozhnaya was almost caught by Ukraine’s Nataliya Tobias on the last lap but woke up just in time to finish second with Checa and Russian champion Olesya Syreva talking the other qualifying spots.
Tobias was rewarded for her late efforts with a PB 9:05.57 and a place in the final. Irish record holder Mary Cullen, the 2009 bronze medallist, was a non-starter.
The two pre-event favourites in the high jump, European leader Antionetta Di Martino of Italy and Russia’s Svetlana Shkolina, impressed to advance to tomorrow’s final with a perfect record up to and including the automatic qualification height of 1.94m in the preliminaries.
In fact, seven of the eight women who advanced to the final cleared 1.94m, including Israel’s Danielle Frenkel, who added 0.04 to her pre-competition best to set a new national record. Swedish champion Ebba Jungmark and Oksana Okuneva of Ukraine also both set personal bests at that height to progress.
Surprisingly, two of the Russians failed to advance. Viktoriya Klyugina, the 2009 European Indoor bronze medallist, looked short of her best throughout and failed to negotiate 1.92m. Her teammate, teenager Mariya Kuchina, who went into this competition ranked joint third in Europe, cleared 1.92m, but a first time failure at her opening height of 1.75m proved costly and she wound up ninth just missing a final spot.
All the main contenders in the pole vault are among the nine finalists, including German record holder Silke Spiegelburg. The 2009 silver medallist also expended minimal effort, taking just three vaults before clearing 4.55 first time.
The big surprise of the round was Mikka Nikkanen who raised her own Finnish record three times with clearances at 4.45, 4.50 and 4.55 to book her place in tomorrow’s final.
But there was no place in the final for the 17-year-old wonder-kid Angelica Bengtsson. The world youth and junior champion from Sweden has pushed the world junior record up to 4.63 this year but could only manage 4.35 here.
Britain’s 19-year-old prospect Holly Bleasdale fared little better. The world junior bronze medallist last summer, Bleasdale has improved to 4.50 this season, but she needed three to clear 4.45 before going out.
The eliminated also included Victoria Pena who broke the Irish record with 4.35.
In the third event of the heptathlon, the shot, the favourite to collect his fourth title, Roman Å ebrle of Czech Republic, moved into the lead for the first time with a throw of 15.42.
Å ebrle thus totalled 2634, 11 points ahead of Darius Draudvila of Lithuania with Olympic silver Andrei Krauchanka of Ukraine slipping into bronze medal position 59 points behind the leader.
The Belarus athlete had an inspired shot and improved his lifetime best by the massive margin of 60cm to 15.04.
After the first event Ingmar Vos of the Netherlands led with 922 points. Taking his cue from his compatriot Remona Fransen who took bronze in the heptathlon with a slew of personal bests the day before, Vos stormed to a lifetime best of 6.89, improving his previous mark by 0.08.
Draudvila lay second, four points behind, and third, a further seven points adrift was Austria’s Dominic Distelberger.
Season top-two, Å ebrle and Andres Raja of Estonia, were neck and neck on 861 points at this stage for equal fifth, but Raja unfortunately aggravated a thigh injury sustained two weeks ago and withdrew from the competition.
At the conclusion of the long jump, Draudvila emerged top after a 7.40 jump on 1828 points with Vos second, 6 points in arrears. Å ebrle, meanwhile, eased into third overall with a leap of 7.59, slightly down on his season’s best of 7.67.
European leader Anna Nazarova disappointingly failed to advance to the final of the women’s long jump final after a below par qualification performance.
The Russian ‘s best effort of 6.57m with her final jump was only good enough for ninth overall – an agonising one place and 0.01 from a place among the top eight who were awarded a final place.
There was better luck for her compatriot Yuliya Pidluzhnaya who headed the qualifiers for tomorrow’s final with 6.74m. She added 0.04 to her lifetime best and was one of six women who achieved the automatic qualification distance of 6.60m.
The third Russian Darya Klishina, the European Junior champion, also advanced with 6.65m but, arguably, Irena Pusterla produced the performance of the qualification by improving her lifetime best by 0.14 to set a Swiss record of 6.71m.
Two-time former champion Naide Gomes left it late but a last round effort of 6.58m was good enough for the Portuguese to scrape into the final in seventh.