Patricia Mamona and Nelson Evora will look to maintain Portugal’s amazing triple jump success at this week’s European Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade.
They lead a 10-strong team, both determined to write another golden chapter in their brilliant careers.
Mamona is the outdoor European champion, while Evora is the defending indoor champion and they will arrive in Serbia on the back of solid performances so far this season which augur well for something special now it is the time to peak.
With 14.13m in Pombal last week, Mamona moved to third in the European Athletics rankings led by Romania’s Elena Andreea Panturoiu (14.33m) and she has had a consistent career indoors, even if she has never won a major medal.
Mamona, 28, was eighth in the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg in 2013, fourth at the world indoors in Sopot a year later and then fifth at the last Europeans in Prague.
But it was in summer where she finally stamped her mark in the triple jump with a sensational last round performance in Amsterdam to win European gold in a national record of 14.58m to beat Israel’s Hanna Minenko, who had led with 14.51m from the second round.
And then as she finished sixth at the Olympics in Rio, Mamona extended her national mark to 14.65m.
Evora, 32, was one of the great stories from Prague in 2015 as he climbed back to the top of the major podium for the first time since winning the Olympic title in Beijing in 2008.
It was a great display, despite starting with two no-jumps. Evora took the lead in the third round with 16.98m, he was a centimetre shorter in the next before efforts of 17.15m and 17.21m brought gold.
And he is warming up well for the competition ahead, jumping a season’s best of 16.75m in Madrid four days ago to move to sixth on the European Athletics rankings where France’s Jean-Marc Pontvianne leads with 17.13m.
Sweden are sending 29 athletes to Belgrade, with Michel Torneus out to defend the long jump title he won in Prague with a brilliant performance two years ago.
After winning silver with a national record of 8.29m in front of his own fans in Gothenburg in 2013, Torneus went one better – in both podium position and centimetre – as he took gold in the Czech Republic with 8.30m.
Torneus, who won European silver last summer, is joined in Belgrade by 2014 European 5000m champion Meraf Bahta in the 3000m and a strong line up in the pole vault in Angelica Bengtsson, Michaela Meijer and Lisa Gunnarsson.
And their double European 60m hurdles champion Susanna Kallur will not be the only Swedish athlete to retire after these championships as high jumper Emma Green, 32, the bronze medallist in Gothenburg, is also bowing out after a fine career where she won outdoor world bronze in 2005 and European silver (2010) and bronze (2012).