Sweden’s Jonas Leanderson made a big leap forward on the track when he won the 3000m at the IFAM Meeting in Gent in a personal best of 7:53.83 on Saturday 11 February.
Leanderson, now 26, finished fifth in the 2009 European juniors 1500m also competed in the last two European Athletics Championships over 1500m.
His performance in Belgium – a fitting end to the meeting in the last event on the track – at the fifth of this winter’s nine European Athletics Indoor Permit Meetings saw him run more than six seconds faster than his outdoor best over the distance and he moved him up to sixth place on the 2017 European indoor list.
Earlier, there was another Swedish win in the men’s 1500m when Kalle Berglund, still only 20, won in 3:41.53 with Germany’s Marius Probst second in 3:42.48.
Another good distance performances at came from Belarus´ Daryia Barysevich, who took almost a second off her indoor personal best to win the women’s 1500m in 4:13.15.
Behind her, Spain’s Marta Pérez also went into new territory when clocking 4:14.89 in second place.
Germany’s two-time European junior cross country champion Konstanze Klosterhalfen dropped down distance and was a convincing winner of the 800m in 2:03.68.
French women notched up a pair of wins in the shorter events with the 21-year-old Charlotte Jeanne winning the 60m in 7.42 – with the sprinter notably having set a personal best or equalling it in all seven of her races over 60m and 200m this year – while Agnes Raharolahy was close to her best when taking the honours in the 400m in 53.43.
A thrilling men’s 60m hurdles saw just 0.02 cover the first three home with Belgium’s Dario De Borger getting the verdict in 7.82, his compatriot Damien Broothaerts second in 7.83 and the Netherlands’ Jules de Bont third in 7.84.
Pick of the field events was Switzerland’s reigning world and European junior women’s pole vault champion Angelica Moser winning her speciality with 4.27m.