Reigning European U23 champion Mykhaylo Kokhan from Ukraine produced another impressive win on Hungarian soil at the Hungarian Grand Prix Series event in Budapest, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting, on Tuesday (24).
Still only 20, Kokhan set his lifetime best of 80.78m at the prestigious Istvan Gyulai Memorial just before the Olympic Games in Tokyo and while the 80 metre-line alluded the precocious Ukrainian on this occasion, Kokhan still came away with a notable victory over home favourite Bence Halasz.
In his first competition since finishing fourth in Tokyo, Kokhan’s best effort landed at 78.77m. Halasz finished more than one metre in arrears to Kokhan with a best of 77.46m.
To compensate for some of the Diamond League meetings being cancelled due to the pandemic, the women’s shot put and men’s discus were both held in Budapest in the context of the Diamond League programme and both events yielded European victories.
Also fourth at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Portugal’s European indoor champion Auriol Dongmo produced the best throw of the competition in the sixth round with 19.35m in the Final Three format to defeat Sweden’s Fanny Roos (19.01m) and Maggie Ewen from the United States (18.38m).
Brit Lawrence Okoye also saved his best for the winner-takes-all sixth round in the discus. He threw 66.89m to take the scalps of Olympic bronze medallist Lukas Weisshaidinger from Austria (62.94m) and Slovenia’s European U23 champion and record-holder Kristjan Ceh (62.91m).
Reka Szilagyi produced a home victory in the women’s javelin ahead of US veteran Kara Winger - 60.70m to 60.34m - and Belarus’ Nastassia Maslava produced a significant winning throw of 73.10m in the women’s hammer.
On the track, there were two notable victories for Spanish athletes in the middle and long distance events. Olympic 1500m fifth-placer Adel Mechaal won the 1500m in 3:36.51 ahead of Serbia’s Elzan Bibic in 3:36.71 and Seb Martos led a Spanish one-two in the 3000m steeplechase ahead of Ibrahim Ezzaydouni - 8:23.27 to 8:25.30.
In fourth, recently crowned European U23 champion Istvan Palkovits was rewarded with a Hungarian U23 record of 8:28.43 to break a mark which had stood since 1982.
Olympic 100m finalist Daryll Neita from Great Britain finished second in the 100m to Jamaica’s Natasha Morrison - 11.00 to 11.07 - and Poland’s Klaudia Siciarz finished second in the 100m hurdles to Gabrielle Cunningham from the United States - 12.78 to 12.87.
Full results here.