Four of the Zurich gold medallists took the first successful steps in the defence of their titles on the opening morning of the 23rd European Athletics Championships.
After a gap of 88 years, a major track and field event has returned to the magnificent Olympic Stadium here in Amsterdam and as the sun shone, Anita Wlodarczyk, Ruth Beitia and Greg Rutherford progressed from their qualifying events.
Poland's world record-holder Wlodarczyk sailed into the final of the hammer with a second-round 73.94m which was the best throw of the competition from Germany's Betty Heidler (71.46m) but there was shock exit for France's world bronze medallist Alexandra Tavernier who had three fouls.
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Beitia, of Spain, did not enter the high jump until the bar had reached 1.85m, which she cleared with no trouble, before failing at her first attempt at 1.89m.
She went over second time and progressed first-time at the qualifying mark of 1.92m, one of four athletes to go through with that height, the others being Michael Hruba, of the Czech Republic, and Lithuania's Airine Palsyte, as the joint-top two after no failures, and Bulgarian Mirela Demireva.
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Eight metres guaranteed qualification in the long jump but Rutherford could only manage a best of 7.93m to see him through in joint-eighth, with him failing on two of this three attempts.
But what a brilliant performance there was from Sweden's Michel Torneus, who held his nerve and qualified with a last-round 8.19m, the best jump of the day, having had two fouls.
Rutherford's teammate Rooney won his heat of the 400m in 46.57 with his fellow Briton Jarryd Dunn the fastest overall, finishing first in his race in 46.05.
The decathlon's 100m was the first track event and a chance for Oleksiy Kasyanov to build towards his aim of finally winning a gold medal.
The Ukrainian has four major silvers, including being runner-up at the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona 2010, and he put down a good marker by leading after this first event with 908 points, winning the last heat in 10.79.
In second was Norway's Martin Roe (892 points after a 10.86) with Serbia's Mihail Dudas (883, 10.90) in third and this top three stayed the same for the whole first session.
And it was Roe who was quick to make up the 16 points difference in the long jump to lead.
Belgium's Thomas van der Plaetsen won the discipline with 7.64m with Roe producing a second-round personal best of 7.50m for fourth overall and Kasyanov (7.43m) in sixth.
It meant Roe was ahead by just one point with 1827 from Ksayanov and Dudas (1803) after the Serbian stayed in the top three with a long jump of 7.44m.
Belgian Hans Van Alphen delivered a season's best shot put of 15.62m to be top from both groups but in seventh, Roe's 14.58m increased his advantage by five points with 2591 from Kasyanov (2586) and Dudas (2546).
With the top 12 on the European rankings not running until the semis-finals in all sprints up to the 400m and 400m hurdles, personal bests were the order of the day in the qualifying heats in the women's 200m, where Slovenia's Maja Mihalinec (23.01) was the quickest. Also progressing with their fastest time are Greece's Maria Belibasaki (23.03), Switzerland's Ellen Sprunger (23.21), the Netherlands' Laura de Witte (23.23) and Poland's Agata Forkasiewicz (23.53).
Türkiye's Ramil Guliyev was the fastest in the men's 100m with 10.21 followed by Britons Ojie Edoburun (10.24) and Richard Kilty (10.24), while there was much for the home Dutch fans to cheer about in the women's 400m.
With a time of 52.45 in the second heat, Nicky van Leuveren was best from all the races, with Britain's Christine Ohuruogu (52.69), the 2008 Olympic champion, the next best.