European Athletics is pleased to announce that the Netherlands’s Dafne Schippers and Pascal Martinot-Lagarde of France have been voted by the fans and media as European Athletes of the Month for July.
Martinot-Lagarde, the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships 60m hurdles silver medallist ran a national record of 12.95 in the 110 hurdles to win at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Monaco on 18 July moving up to second place on the European all-time list. He will surely win gold if he repeats this performance at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich.
Norway’s Henrik Ingebrigsten was second after running successive 1500m national records of 3:33.68 and then 3:31.46 at the IAAF Diamond League meetings in Rome and Monaco, the latter was the fastest time by a European runner this year. It will be an interesting event in Zurich where Ingebrigsten will attempt to retain his title.
Third in the vote was Poland’s Jiri Sikora. The teenage multi-events exponent set a championship record and European junior record with junior implements of 8135 points at the IAAF World Junior Championships, a tally that included three personal bests in individual events. Remember his name because we are likely to hear it again often in the years to come.
On the women’s side, the award went to Schippers who set European-leading times over 100m and 200m at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Glasgow on 12 July, clocking 11.03 for the 100m and then 22.34 in the 200m for a pair of national records. Due to these results, she has decided to go for gold over both distances at the European Athletics Championships instead of her usual heptathlon.
In second place was France’s Cindy Billaud clocked a 100m hurdles national record of 12.55 in her heat at the French national championships in Reims on 12 July and then consolidated her status as the favourite for this year’s European title with a time of 12.58 in the final later in the day.
In third was Anezka Drahotova of the Czech Republic, the 2013 European 10,000 race walking junior champion won at the IAAF World Junior Championships in a world junior record of 42:47.25, finishing more than a minute and almost a lap of the track ahead of her nearest rival in Eugene.
The European Athlete of the Month initiative was launched in January 2007 and is designed to recognise outstanding performers at all levels of the sport in Europe.
No athlete who has previously served a two-year doping ban can be nominated for the European Athlete of the Month.