The Meeting Mondeville played out in front of a capacity crowd at the intimate setting of the Halle Michel d'Ornan and the World Athletics Indoor Tour Bronze meeting on Wednesday (8) evening was highlighted by a sprinkling of European victories.
In the women’s high jump, experience triumphed over youth as Ukraine’s Yuliya Levchenko defeated rising Estonian star Karmen Bruus for top honours on the road to the Istanbul 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships from 2-5 March.
Levchenko, who won silver at the World Athletics Championships in 2017 when she was still a teenager, cleared 1.89m to defeat her 18-year-old Estonian rival by one clear height.
Bruus, whose competition started with an untimely slip at her opening height, recovered well from this adversity and eventually cleared 1.86m, finishing second on countback from France’s Solene Gicquel.
On the track, Spain’s Javier Miron won a tactical and physical contest in the men’s 800m. With 10 athletes spread across just four tight lanes, Miron kicked hard with one lap to go and held off the advancing Daniel Rowden for victory by 0.02 in 1:49.50.
There was a second Spanish victory in the men’s 400m with Manuel Guijarro the fastest across three races with 47.84 while Ireland’s Sharlene Mawdsley won the women’s 400m in 53.37 by four-tenths from Austria’s Susanne Gogl-Walli in 53.77.
From an international highlight, standout performances included African 100m record-holder Ferdinand Omanyala from Kenya winning the 60m in a national record of 6.55 and Jacob Wooten clearing a meeting record of 5.82m in the pole vault to lead an American clean sweep.
World fourth-placer Leyanis Perez Hernandez from Cuba also set a meeting record of 14.48m in the triple jump with European U23 champion Tugba Danismaz - who could be an outside bet for a medal for host nation Türkiye at the European Indoor Championships - third with a season’s best of 14.12m.
The next World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting to be streamed will be the Metz Moselle Athlelor on 11 February featuring treble European outdoor champion Femke Bol running her first 400m of the season.
The Metz Moselle Athlelor will be streamed live through the European Athletics Facebook page from 3.00pm CET although the stream will be geo-blocked in France.
Steven Mills for European Athletics