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| Claudio Licciardello steered the Italian 4X400m relay team to gold medal with a blistering finish at the recently concluded European Athletics Indoor Championships in Torino. |
Omega the official timing partners of the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Torino for the first time provided technology that allowed intermediate times from transponders that gave information on every split by each competitor at the three-day Championships.
A quick analysis shows some revealing facts. The most amazing one comes from women's 3000m, where Alemitu Bekele of Türkiye dished out a superb timing of 29.7 in the last 200 m to win the title, and to the surprise of many pundits that is faster than any split taken by the winner's of 800m and 1500m and even faster than male 3000m winner Mo Farah. Mo Farah clocked 31.17 and Bob Tahri 32.34 for the last 200 m, but otherwise they were separated the whole race only by 0.2-0.3 each split.
In women´s 400 m the winner Antonina Krivoshapka had the fastest second 200 m in the heats (24.6-26.96 to final time of 51.56), in the semi-finals she started quicker but ended slower (24.3-27.29, 51.59) and in the finals she clearly went out too fast (23.2-27.98, 51.18).
The fastest second 200 m in the final was by Ukrainian Natalya Pyhyda (second) with 27.44.
In the men 400 m the winner Johan Wissman had the fastest both laps (21.4 and 24.39) in the finals. Second placed local hero Claudio Licciardello was timed at 21.7 and 24.62, whereas his heat run was better splitted with 21.9 and 24.41 (46.31 what was faster than 46.32 in the finals).
800m winner Mariya Savinova slowed down with each lap (28.1-28.4-29.9-31.7) and had halves (56.5-61.6) but still managed to win in 10th best of all-time indoors 1:58.10.
Silver winner Oksana Zbrozhek was faster than her in the last lap with 31.1. On the opposite side was UK Marilyn Okoro who fell before the finish line and her last lap was 36.7.
Totally opposite was the way how Yuriy Borzakovskiy came for men 800 m win. He started with 27.6 lap, slowed to 30.1 and then became faster 26.8 and finished with 24.95 what is worth of good 400 m runner second lap (his halves 56.8 and 51.75).
Portuguese 1500 m winner Rui Silva was from begin faster each 200 m (32.4-30.9-30.7-30.2-28.8-28.6-26.68). Russian female dominator at 1500 m Anna Alminova had her fastest 200 m between 1100 and 1300 m with 30.7 (the progress from begin was 34.3-33.8-34.2-33.5-33.2-30.7-31.06).
In the men's relay Claudio Licciardello steered the home team to gold with the fastest split of all runners 45.82s. Piotr Klimczak who anchored Poland was the second fastest (46.18) and Matteo Galvan running second leg for Italy was the third best (46.24).
In the women event Russian Antonina Krivoshapka clocked 50.86 in last part of winning team. Her compatriot Darya Safonova finished the second leg in 52.08 while British Vicky Barr was the third fastest 52.18 in third leg.
Overall split of the medal winners from the two relay's are:
4x400m Relay Men
1 ITA - Italy 3:06.68
MARIN Jacopo 47.64, GALVAN Matteo 46.24, RAO Domenico 46.98, LICCIARDELLO Claudio 45.82
2 GBR - Great Britain 3:07.04
BUCK Richard 46.65, LEAVEY Nick 46.65, LEVINE Nigel 46.76,