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| Bulgarian sprinter Ivet Lalova on her way to winning the women's 100m at the European Team Championships Second League in Novi Sad, Serbia, on Saturday. |
Sprinter Ivet Lalova guided Bulgaria to the top of the table at the end of day one at the European Team Championships Second League in Novi Sad, Serbia, on Saturday.
With 115 points Bulgaria is leading the eight team pools and is being closely followed by Estonia 108.50 and hosts Serbia with 102 points.
Lalova won her 100m race clocking 11.20 ahead of Lina Grincikaite of Lithuania and Grit Sadeiko of Estonia who finished with times of 11.58 and 11.81 respectively.
Lalova, the second fastest ever European sprinter with 10.77 set in 2005, has had injury problems in recent years - including recovering from a broken leg, but this year she has been in great form running 11.01 for the 100m at the Diamond League meeting in Oslo.
“I am happy with my victory. I will compete in three events at the championship with the hope of winning maximum number of points for my team. Novi Sad is too beautiful and too hot,” said Lalova.
Her compatriot Vania Stambolova collected the full 8 points that were on offer, winning the women’s 400m hurdles clocking 53.70. Sara Petersen of Denmark finished second with 57.52 while Mila Andric of Serbia came home third in 59.47.
Stambolova also won the women’s 400m clocking 50.98 ahead of Maris Magi of Estonia 52.51 and Agne Orlauskaite who came home in 53.31.
In other major performances of the day, European champion Libor Charfreitag of Slovakia won the men’s hammer with a throw of 77.69m, Ainars Vaiculens of Latvia threw 70.99m to claim the second spot while Denmark's Torben Wolf finished third with a 62.48m throw.
Latvian shot putter Maris Urtans won his event with ease with a throw of 20.13m.
Dana Veldakova won the women’s triple jump with a leap of 13.89m, finishing ahead of local star Ivana Spanovic who was competing in triple jump for the first time in her career. She finished third with 13.54m and that fetched vital five points for Serbia.
“This has been a wonderful experience for me and a good warm up for tomorrow’s long jump competition” said Ivana Spanovic.
The first day of the competition finished on a high note as the Danish team won the 4x100m relay with a new national record of 39.71.
Denmark is lying fourth with 95 points followed by Lithuania 92 points, Austria 90 points, Slovakia and Latvia tied in seventh with 76 points.
Individual event results can be found here.
Team standings can be found here.