Great Britain and Poland won the men’s and women’s team competitions respectively at the European Cup Combined Events First League in the northern Italian town of Bressanone on Saturday.
The British trio of Daniel Awde, Ashley Bryant and Martin Brockman were second, third and ninth respectively in the individual decathlon to put together a collective total of 22989 points.
Belgium came through strongly on the second day to secure second place with 22468 points but finished a distant 521 points behind their British rivals.
Poland, who were helped considerably by Karolina Tyminska winning the individual heptathlon with 6297 points, won the women’s title with 17039 points.
Italy took second place with 17050 points, just edging out Hungary by 20 points.
Switzerland’s Simon Walter, who also won the First League 12 months ago when it was staged in the Dutch town of Hengelo, led the decathlon overnight with 4149 points.
However he was only 21 points in front of Awde and an enthralling battle for supremacy commenced from the very first event on the second day.
Awde ran the 110m hurdles in 14.56, the second fastest time behind Spain’s Jonay Jordan who ran 14.55, and regained the overall lead by 28 points after Walter could only run 14.96.
Walter then went back in front by 23 points after he threw the discus 42.94m to Awde’s 40.44m, with Italy’s William Frulliani having the best throw with 43.27m.
The pair were the best vaulters with Awde adding 20 centimetres to his personal best when he went over 5.10m, to Walter’s 4.90m, which gave the British athlete a slender lead of 38 points.
However, the pendulum swung back in Walter’s favour during the javelin, which was won by Bryant, who threw more than six metres further than anyone else when he launched his spear out to 66.00m.
Walter reached 55.40m as Awde struggled and fouled his first two throws before playing it safe with a 43.65m effort, more than 12 metres down on his recent personal best of 55.85m.
The difference of nearly 12 metres between the two main protagonists for the individual title meant that Walter went back into the lead by 136 points with just the final event, the 1500m remaining.
Awde ran 4:29.52 but Walter’s effort of 4:37.58 was enough to give him victory by 84 points, with a total of 7973 points to Awde’s 7889 points, both men setting personal bests. Bryant, in third place with 7747 points, also earned a personal best.
Like Walter, Tyminska was also in front overnight and emerged as the comfortable winner.
Tyminska lead with 3728 points after four events and was 13 centimetres in front of the best of the rest of the women when she leapt 6.39m with his first effort in the long jump.
A modest javelin of 36.15m saw her lead reduced to 124 points as Hungary’s Györgyi Farkas moved up into second place following her excellent throw of 46.36, following in the wake of a personal best of 6.25m in the long jump.
However, Tyminska is one of the best 800m runners among the world’s top heptathletes and she sped around two laps of the track in 2:07.22, more than five seconds faster than anybody else, to cement her victory.
Farkas finished as the overall runner up with 6068 points to add nine points to her personal best while Belarus’ Yana Maksimava, who was second by Tyminska overnight, had to settle for third place with 5998 points.
The Netherlands and Spain filled the bottom two places in the men’s team competition.
Full results from the First League can be found here:
http://www.fidal.it/2011/COD3094/Index.htm