Home hero and Olympic bronze medallist Emmanouil Karalis won the men’s pole vault at the Balkan Athletics Championships in Volos, Greece on Sunday (27) before making some bold attempts to climb all-time list.
After clearing 5.92m at the third attempt to clinch gold, he raised the bar to 6.11m, a full six centimetres above his lifetime best from March this year and a mark that would leave him clear fourth on the all-time list behind just Armand Duplantis (6.28m), Renaud Lavillenie (6.16m) and Sergey Bubka (6.15m).
Although he was foiled on this occasion, the European silver medallist would have been highly encouraged by his second and third attempts, both of which were very close.
U23 champions Topić and Kocak maintain winning form
Another pre-event favourite Angelina Topić also triumphed. A week on from winning gold at the Bergen 2025 European Athletics U23 Championships, the Serbian won the women’s high jump. She needed three attempts at 1.91m, before clearing 1.93m at the second try for gold.
Türkiye’s Dilek Kocak completed the women’s middle distance double. The European U23 champion added 1500m gold to the 800m title she pocketed on Saturday (26), winning in 4:09.85.
The men’s 800m was won by Croatian record holder Marino Bloudek who defended his Balkan title in 1:45.55.
Skarvelis sets PB for hammer gold
The women’s hammer throw brought out the best in Greece’s Stamatia Alexandra Skarvelis who won with 71.95m.
It was a new personal best for the 29-year-old and earned her victory over 2022 European champion Bianca Ghelber of Romania, whose best was 70.20m. Cyprus’ world U20 champion Valentina Savva was third with 69.21m.
Yipsi Moreno, a three-time time world champion and 2008 Olympic champion for Cuba, now enjoying a late career revival with Albania was fourth with 68.74m. Paris 2024 Olympic finalist Alin Alexandru Firfirica of Romania won the men’s discus with 63.15m.
2023 world bronze medallist Alina Rotaru-Kottmann of Romania won the women’s long jump with 6.81m (+1.0m/s) ahead of Cypriot Filippa Fotopoulou with 6.65m (+1.6m/s).
Bronze went to Romanian’s Ramona Elena Verman, newly crowned European U23 champion, who maintained her recent upward trajectory with a new personal best of 6.63m (+1.8m/s).
Relay thriller
The sprint hurdles went the way of Ukraine’s Dmytro Bahinskyi who won the men’s 110m hurdles in a personal best 13.64 (-2.8m/s) and Austria’s Karin Strametz who won the women’s 100m hurdles in 13.00 (-0.6m/s).
There was also a thrilling men’s 4x400m with three nations vying for gold into the closing straight. Ukraine’s Oleksandr Pohorilko just fending off Slovenia’s charging Rok Ferlan by 0.01 to take gold in 3:07:00.
Greece took bronze with George John Franks bringing home the baton for a finishing time of 3:07.48.