European indoor champion Darya Klishina of Russia will be
a strong contender for the long jump gold at the European
Athletics U23 Championships in Ostrava.

European indoor long jump champion Darya Klishina of Russia and British pole vault prodigy Holly Bleasdale among the star cast for the Ostrava 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships taking place 14-17 July.

Sprints and hurdles

Event leader in the short sprint, Romania’s Andreea Ograzeanu, has set three personal bests from 60m to 200m so far this season including a swift 11.34 in lifting her national senior title with a favourable legal wind close to the limit. Marginally more impressive is Darya Pizhankova’s 11.35 with the wind gauge at zero. France’s Emilie Gaydu and Russia’s Yekaterina Filatova are sure to have some say in how the medals are shared out.

Ukraine’s Pizhankova is 0.3 faster than anyone else in the 200m, Anna Kie…‚basinska of Poland comes closest with Briton Emily Diamond and Ograzeanu both operating in the 23.40 range.

It is no surprise that the 400m is coloured Russian but with only two representatives this time round, Olga Topilskaya and Yuliya Terekhova, they cannot clean sweep the podium. That leaves the way open for Ukraine’s Yuliya Baraley, Germany Lena Schmidt, or France’s Floria Guei to upset the form book.

Lisa Urech shot to the top of the outright European 100m Hurdles rankings with her scintillating 12.62 recently and is sure to improve on her sixth place from Kaunas. Another Kaunas medallist, Alina Talay of Belarus, will be looking to unsettle Urech, but the Swiss appears to have gold within her grasp. The only other athlete to come close to 13sec is Germany’s Cindy Roleder, while Russia’s Nina Argunova is knocking on the door with 13.02.

Hanna Titimets and Anna Yarushchuk of Ukraine are the only two sub-55sec performers in the 400m hurdles and will be aiming at improving on their fourth and eighth place from Kaunas. Megan Beesley of Great Britain and Jessie Barr of Ireland make up the medal contenders.

Endurance

European Indoor 1500m champion, Yelena Arzhakova of Russia, is going for the middle distance double. She leads the 800m rankings ahead of compatriot Aleksandra Bulanova. Lynsey Sharp of Great Britain, Germany’s Anne Kesselring and Natalija Piliušina of Lithuania are all within striking distance of the Russian duo.

Three personal bests across three distances mean that 1500m event leader, Tugba Karakaya of Türkiye is mining a fine vein of form. But there is no clear favourite for the title with so many athletes within seconds of each other. The winner could well be the fastest two-lap exponent, including Arazhakova or Poland’s Danuta Urbanik.

Türkiye's European U23 cross country champion
Meryem Erdogan will be a very strong medal
contender in the women's 5000/10000m races.

The unknown quantity for the 5000m/10000m double is Türkiye’s Meryem Erdogan who has yet to contest a track race this year after recovering from Achilles tendon problems. Event leaders for the 5000m, meanwhile, are the Russian duo of Yekaterina Gorubkova and Yelena Korobkina. Triple European Junior gold medallist over the years, Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal, is bound to make her presence felt, while Serbia’s Bogdana Mimic and Hannah Walker of Great Britain are on a par with the Norwegian.

If Erdogan is indeed in shape it is hard to see anyone living with her sb-32min credentials in the 10000m, but Ukraine’s Lyudmila Kovalenko may make a race of it. Portugal’s Carla Salomé Rocha has dipped under 34min this summer.

Türkiye’s Gulcan Mingir slashed over 20sec from her steeplechase best this year when she clocked 9:39.83 in June to put her in the driving seat for the title. Grøvdal also starts alongside Germany’s Jana Sussman and Poland’s Matylda Slezak, while mention should be made of Eilish Mc Colgan, daughter to the 1991 world 10000m champion, Liz, who is also her coach.

Field events

It is hard to see a clear favourite for the high jump with only 1cm separating the top six in Europe. Standing just 1cm over the pack is Germany’s Marie-Laurence Jungfleisch on a career best 1.93m.

There is not the same problem with the pole vault where Britain’s Holly Bleasdale is head and shoulders above her rivals after her 4.70m national record in Mannheim at the beginning of the month. But the pole vault is nothing if not fraught with pitfalls and Ekaterini Stefanidi of Greece, Anastasiya Savchenko of Russia and Marion Lotout of France are all competent rivals.

A promising long jump head-to-head is in the offing between Belarus’ Nastassia Mironchik-Ivanova and Russia’s European indoor champion, Darya Klishina. Klishina only has a 6.76 to her name this year so far, but sailed over 7m last summer for a Russian junior record. Serbia’s Ivana Spanovic, Sosthene Taroum Moguenera of Germany and Paraskevi Papahristou of Greece have all gone over 6.55m.

Papahristou is defending champion in the triple jump and given her superiority is favourite to retain the title. Like Papahristou, Mironchik-Ivanova has set new age-group figures recently in this event. Anna Jagaciak of Poland, Hanna Knyazheva of Ukraine and Carmen Toma of Romania have all gone over 14m.

Yevgeniya Kolodko of Russia holds a half-metre advantage over compatriot, Olesiya Sviridova in the shot. Apart from Melissa Boekelman of the Netherlands and Anita Marton of Hungary, no one else is close to 18m.

Yevgeniya Pecherina’s recent Russian age-group record of 65.77 places her fourth in the world so high quality is guaranteed in the discus. Team-mate Yuliya Strokova and Germany’s Julia Fischer have both cleared the 59m-mark.

Bianca Perie of Romania is getting close to last season’s high-water mark of 73.52m after hurling the implement over 70m twice in the month of June and should win the title. Sophie Hitchon of Great Britain is putting hammer throwing on the map in her country after her outright national record in the national University championships of 69.43. The Kaunas silver medallist, Katerina Safrankova of the home nation, is in the field and may well challenge for victory.

After silver last time round, Vira Rebryk of Ukraine will be only considering gold in the javelin. Compatriot Hanna Hatsko has also gone over 60m, but with the varying conditions and so many athletes close together the medals could well be a bit of a lottery.

Heptathlon

Both 6000+ athletes, Yana Maksimava of Belarus and Aliva Fydorova of Ukraine have set their best scores this season. Russia’s Kristina Savitskaya and Nadine Broersen of the Netherlands are evenly matched, just 57 points separating them.

20km walk

Russia took two out of three medals in Kaunas and could well enjoy a clean sweep here. The top five performers this season are all Russian, so two will be staying at home, but still there is enough quality for Anna Lukyanova, Tatyana Mineyeva and Nina Ochotnikova to claim the honours.

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