Pars celebrates homecoming with a win

Olympic champion Krisztian Pars of Hungary.

The second Istvan Gyulai Memorial Hungarian Gran Prix, which took place at the Puskas Stadium in Budapest on Monday, saw the favourites take the top spots in front of a crowd of 16,000.

Olympic 400m gold medallist Sanya Richards-Ross won the 200m with a time of 22.70 (0.0) ahead of Aleen Bailey of Jamaica (23.02).

American Christian Taylor leaped to victory in the triple jump, recording a best effort of 17.30m (+0.4) that put him comfortably ahead of second placed Ukrainian Sheryf El-Sheryf, whose best jump was 16.98m (-0.1).


Another US star, Jason Richardson, won the 110m hurdles with a time of 13.15 (+0.1), beating Jamaican Andrew Riley (13.39) and fellow American Ryan Wilson (13.42).

The crowd cheered on Hungarian Olympic champion, Krisztian Pars, who dominated the hammer with a best effort of 79.74m, ahead of Russian Sergey Litvinov (77.97m) and Czech Lukas Melich (76.65m).

In the women’s 400m, Sherlika Williams of Jamaica produced a season’s best 50.35 to take top spot ahead of Italian Libania Grenot (50.55).

Caleb Ndiku of Kenya clocked a fast 7:35.41 in the 3000m beating fellow countrymen John Kipkoech (7:38.74) and Edwin Soi (7:41.50).

Olympic bronze medallist Timothy Kitum (KEN) ran 1:45.39 in his 800 m win over U17 athlete Edwin Meli (1:45.41) and Job Kinyor (1:45.98) of Kenya.

In an exciting 200 m duel Jamaican Mario Forsythe clocked 20.33 (-0.7) to beat US Olympic relay medallist Darvis Patton (20.34). Olympian Maurice Mitchell of the USA came third with a time of 20.68.

Jarrin Solomon of Trinidad won the 400 m in 45.48 and Kenyan Sylvia Kibet prevailed in the 3000m with a time of 9:02.68.

The high jump ended with a jump-off, which was won by Konstantinos Baniotis of Greece over Michal Kabelka of Slovakia.  Both jumped 2.24m in the competition, before going down to 2.21m in the jump-off, which they both cleared. Baniotis then cleared 2.23m, a mark which Kabelka was unable to respond to.

Belarussian Nastasya Mironchyk-Ivanova won the long jump with a leap of 6.79m (+1.0) ahead of American Whitney Gipson, who jumped 6.66m (+1.3)

American Michelle Carter took the shot put (18.84m), while after the meet; Hungarian Olympic medalists from a range of sports were presented in the stadium.

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