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| High jump star Antonietta Di Martino will spearhead the Italian challenge at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Paris. |
Italy will send 27 athletes to the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Paris next week and the contingent is looking to return to Rome with several medals in their possession.
The hosts of the last championships won six medals, two of each hue, in Torino two years ago and while equalling that figure in Paris may be a tough task, il Tricolore should be seen on several occasions.
The most likely time should be after the women’s high jump in which world leader Antonietta Di Martino will try to improve on her silver medal from the 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships, her only previous appearance at the event. The 32-year-old Di Martino jumped an Italian record of 2.04m earlier this month.
The 2009 triple jump champion Fabrizio Donato will defend his title but will obviously have to be at his very best to stand a chance of finishing in front of France’s 2010 world indoor champion Teddy Tamgho, who also set a world record of 17.91m just a week ago.
Simona La Mantia, the 2005 European Athletics U23 Championships gold medallist, also has a good chance of getting on the podium in an evenly matched women’s triple jump, after going out to 14.33m on two occasions this winter, while Emanuele Di Gregorio won the 60m bronze medal in Torino two years ago and has medal prospects again as he goes to Paris lying third on this season’s European rankings.
The full Italy team can be seen at this link to the Italian federation website.
Romania is sending 16 athletes. Only four are men but they also contain the country’s biggest medal hope, triple jumper Marian Oprea.
Oprea, 28, won the silver medal at the 2010 European Athletics Championships. He has also been on the European Athletics Indoor Championships podium before, back in 2002 when he won the silver medal as a 19-year-old.
This winter Oprea has been in outstanding form and seems to be peaking at the right time after having jumped 17.37m in Stockholm on Tuesday, which makes him the second best performer, based on 2011 marks, who will be in Paris.
Oprea, who has spent much of this winter training in Greece, also knows how to get it right on the big occasion and has won Olympic Games and World Championships medals in the past.
Disatnce runner Ancuta Bobocel won a plethora of medals at international championships on the track and also at cross country as a junior. Now, at 23, she looks set to make her mark at a senior level and could be in contention for honours over 1500m.
Bobocel was an impressive winner over that distance in at the prestigious international meeting in Stuttgart earlier this month, running a big personal best of 4:08.13.
There will also be a lot of interest in how the 2010 World Junior Championships 800m gold medallist Mirela Lavric runs over four laps of the track in the French capital, perhaps giving an indication of the 20-year-old’s medal prospects at this summer’s European Athletics U23 Championships.
The full Romania team can be seen at this link to the Romanian federation website.
Türkiye will send 12 athletes to the European Athletics Indoor Championships, including the defending women’s 3000m champion Alemitu Bekele Degfa.
She got Türkiye’s first medal of any description in Torino two years ago when she destroyed her rivals with a stunning burst of acceleration over the last lap to win in a national record of 8:46.50.
Bekele, 33, has since gone from strength-to-strength, including winning the 2010 European Athletics Championships 5000m gold medal.
She has not run an indoor race this winter but it would be unwise to dismiss her chances of victory again as she was an impressive winner at the European Champion Clubs Cup Cross Country event in Italy earlier this month, again using her devastating kick over the last 200m to great effect.
The complete Turkish team is: Men - Serdar Tamaç (400m), Halit Kiliç (800m), Kemal Koyuncu (1500m), Mert Girmalegese (1500m and 3000m), Halil Akka…Ÿ (3000m); women - Meliz Redif and P„±nar Saka (both 400m), Yeliz Kurt and Merve Aydin (both 800m), Dudu Karakaya (1500m), Almitu Bekele Degfa and Sultan Haydar (both 3000m).
The 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships will be held in Paris at the Palais Omnisport Paris-Bercy from 4-6 March.