A trio of Poland’s European champions from Berlin last August will be competing in the Irena Szewinska Memorial, a European Athletics Classic Permit Meeting, which takes place in Bydgoszcz tomorrow (12).
An annual meeting has taken place in Bydgoszcz each year since 2001 but the event has been renamed in honour of Irena Szewinska who passed away last June. Szewinska won three Olympic titles across her five appearances and remains the only athlete to have held world records in the 100m, 200m and 400m.
There will be strong Polish representation in two of those events tomorrow evening. Justyna Swiety-Ersetic, who swept the European 400m and 4x400m titles on the same evening in Berlin, faces teammates Malgorzata HoÅ‚ub-Kowalik, Iga Baumgart-Witan and Anna Kielbasinska over one lap while European indoor 60m champion Ewa Swoboda makes her season’s debut over 100m.
Swoboda was in scintillating form indoors over 60m, winning 14 of her 15 races at the distance. Her win at the European Indoor Championships was particularly notable as she became the first winner of a sprint title in Glasgow since Szewinska won over 50m in 1969.
Swoboda won’t be on unfamiliar territory tomorrow evening. She won silver on this track in the 100m at the 2016 World U20 Championships in a still-standing lifetime best of 11.12 before upgrading silver to gold the following summer at the European Athletics U23 Championships.
On the in-field, European indoor and outdoor shot put champion Michal Haratyk will go head-to-head with his younger teammate and predecessor to the European indoor title Konrad Bukowiecki who leads the European outdoor list with 21.97m. Bukowiecki, like Swoboda, was crowned European U23 title in this arena two years ago.
In the hammer, world champion Pawel Fajdek faces a strong international line-up including reigning Olympic champion Dilshod Nazarov from Tajikistan and Great Britain’s Nick Miller. Fajdek leads the world lists at this early juncture of the season with 80.03m.
The programme concludes with the men’s 800m featuring three-time European champion Adam Kszczot and reigning European indoor 1500m champion Marcin Lewandowski.
The programme begins tonight with a street pole vault featuring European indoor champion Pawel Wojciechowski and world silver medallist Piotr Lisek.
Live results for the pole vault and start-lists for tomorrow evening can be found here.