Russia dominate the first day in Bergen
 |
| Natalya Antyukh of Russia registered a superb win in the women's 400m hurdles clocking 55.27 on the first day of the SPAR European Team Championships in Bergen, Norway, on Saturday. |
Russia has 209 points after 21 of the 40 events, with Great Britain holding second place with 188 points and Italy third with 160.5 points.
Defending champions Germany are surprisingly back in seventh place with 141.5 points while the bottom three teams that face relegation to the First League next year are Greece, Norway and Finland.
Russia took the lead after the sixth event and they were never headed for the rest of the day.
They only had two winners in the first 10 events: Yelena Zadorozhnaya sprinting home in the women’s 3000m in 9:08.42 and former Pole Vault world record holder Svetlana Feofanova winning her specialist event with 4.65m, but then started to rack up the victories as the day drew to a close.
Alexandr Shustov and Pavel Shalin took the men’s High Jump and Long Jump respectively - the latter jumping a wind assisted 8.26m - Kseniya Ustalova and Nataliya Antyukh won the women’s 400m and 400m hurdles, Yuliya Zarudneva produced a brilliant solo gun-to-tape run to win the women’s 3000m Steeplechase.
Russia’s well-drilled women’s 4x100m team, the 2008 Olympic Games gold medallists, also took their expected first place in the penultimate event of the day, winning in a European-leading 42.98.
The key to Russia’s success on the first day was also their solid scoring from the rest of the team, with their competitors in only six events scoring less than double figures.
“I just reminded all the team last night that this is a team competition and that every place, every point, is important. Our fate depends on not just one athlete, but the whole team,” said Russia’s head coach Valentin Maslakov.
Individual highlights from those teams trailing in Russia’s wake on the first day included a European-leading 100m from Great Britain's Dwain Chambers, who blasted his way down the Fana Stadium track to a to the fantastic time of 9.99 to become the first European under the 10-second barrier this year and also set a stadium record.
Chambers had a relatively sluggish start but his pick up was excellent and by 20 metres he was in front.
However, he could never completely shake off the long-legged Christophe Lemaître, France's 2009 European Athletics Rising Star of the Year, and last year's European Junior champion clocked a personal best of 10.02. The duel in Bergen could be a prelude to another battle for supremacy at next month's European Athletics Championships in Barcelona.
Germany's Nadine Müller, the favourite for the European Athletics Championships women’s Discus gold medal and the best thrower in the world this year, was the first woman to throw in her event and ended the competition within seconds of entering the circle with her opening effort to 63.53m.
 |
| Colin McCourt of Great Britain won the men's 1500m with a time of 3:46.70. |
The throw proved to be almost four metres more than anyone else could manage.
The long distance events also produced some enthralling tactical contests with Great Britain’s Mo Farah getting a morale boosting victory over Spain’s Alemayehu Bezabeh, turning the tables on him following the result at the 2009 SPAR European Cross Country Championships last December.
Farah showed that he still had some snap in his legs despite the energy he expended in winning the European Cup 10,000m earlier this month, sprinting away from the man who recently became only the third European to go under 13 minutes for the distance, 150 metres from home to win in 13:46.93.
Another of Great Britain’s four victories that helped them to second place on the first day came on the opening event on the track when David Greene emphasised his credentials as Europe’s top 400m hurdler at the moment with a convincing victory in 49.53.
Many of the individual events were won by the favourites but perhaps the biggest upset came in the women’s 100m when France’s Veronique Mang beat several more-fancied runners with a stunning surge over the second half of the race.
Mang clocked a wind-assisted 11.23, her second fastest performance ever under any conditions, after a poor start after overhauling Norway’s 2007 European Athletics Junior Championships 100m gold medallist Ezinne Okparaebo 10 metres from the line.
