Norwegian hurdler Christina Vukicevic and Finnish high jumper Osku Torro were the star performers at the indoor match between hosts Finland, Norway and Sweden in Tampere on Saturday.
Vukicevic got a blistering start to clock a 60m hurdles national record of 7.92, improving her own mark by one-hundredth and equalling the fastest time in the world.
'I placed fourth at the European indoors in 2009 and outdoors 2010 and I think my collection of the fourth places is now complete. This was an important test for Paris', said Vukicevic, referring to the European Athletics Indoor Championships next month.
The 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships will be held in the French capital Paris at the Palais Omnisport Paris-Bercy from 4-6 March.
Sprinter Ezinne Okparaebo was another Norwegian who finished fourth at last summer’s European Athletics Championships in Barcelona, just missing out on a medal in the 100m, but took a comfortable victory this time in the women’s 60m with 7.31.
Tampere’s over-sized 300m track also allowed the organisers to stage an extremely rarely run 300m indoor hurdles race and Norway’s Stine Tomb ran a world best of 40.09.
There was another Norwegian women’s victory as well in the triple jump as Inger Anne Frøysedal equalled her recent national record of 13.57m
However, these four wins were not enough to stop Norway finishing third in the women’s competition as Sweden took the honours with 119 points followed by Finland and Norway with 96 and 83 points respectively.
Torro went over a Finnish indoor record of 2.33m on his first attempt, having taken three tries at his previous height of 2.30m, to improve his own previous national record of 2.32m from last year and move up to second place on 2011 world rankings behind Russia’s Ivan Ukhov.
'When I jumped 2.24 earlier in this season, I felt that at least 2.30 would be possible today. Everything came together and I had a very emotional moment after setting a new national record in front of my home crowd,” said Torro.
“There’s been so much talking about my 2.32 in Wuppertal last winter. Some have said that maybe Torro had used a trampoline, but this was my answer to that,” he added.
There was some good jumping as well in the long jump as Sweden’s Michel Torneus, a 2010 European Athletics Championships finalist and a winner at the 2010 European Team Championships First League meeting which helped his country return to the top flight this year, won with 7.94m.
Torneus’s victory in the final event of the men’s match was critical and sealed victory for the visitors, Sweden winning with 115 points while Finland scored 114 and Norway again finished third with 68.