Rising Dutch middle distance talent Niels Laros broke new barriers in the 1500m at the Spitzen Leichtathletik Luzern meeting on Tuesday (30) evening, a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meeting.
The 17-year-old, who achieved a 1500/3000m double at the European Athletics U18 Championships in Jerusalem last month, finished eighth in 3:39.46 to break the European U18 best of 3:39.93 set by Jakob Ingebrigtsen in 2017.
Laros moves into the U20 ranks next season and he looks poised to be one of the prospective stars of next year’s European Athletics U20 Championships in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. His range also extends to the 800m in which he recently clocked 1:46.3.
Yared Nuguse took the victory in 3:36.34 comfortably ahead of Great Britain’s George Mills in 3:37.53 and Poland’s Michal Rozmys in 3:37.96.
In wet and windy conditions which had a profound impact on performances, Simon Ehammer coped best with the inclement weather in the long jump and took two notable scalps.
The home favourite, who won silver in a momentous decathlon battle with Niklas Kaul at the Munich 2022 European Athletics Championships earlier this month, jumped 8.00m to defeat 2019 world champion Tajay Gayle from Jamaica (7.98m) and reigning Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou from Greece (7.94m).
This was Ehammer’s first victory over Tentoglou in their four competitions in 2022.
Full results here.
Bruni clears Italian pole vault record of 4.72m in Rovereto
Roberta Bruni was the standout Italian performer on home soil at the Palio Citta della Quercia in Rovereto on Tuesday, a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meeting.
A first-time clearance at 4.43m would have proved sufficient for victory on countback but Bruni went higher and higher. The 28-year-old cleared 4.53m on her second attempt, 4.63m on her first attempt before ameliorating her Italian record by one centimetre with a third-time clearance at 4.72m.
This was Bruni’s second national record of the year having cleared 4.71m in Barletta in June.
The charismatic Nick Ponzio also provided another popular victory in the shot put. Ponzio was the only thrower to surpass the 21 metre-line, sending the 7.26 kilogram implement to 21.22m in the fifth round to put further distance between himself and second-placer Roman Kokoshko from Ukraine with 20.63m.
Former European U20 champion Milica Gardasevic took a significant victory in the long jump. The Serbian bounded out to 6.78m to defeat European bronze medallist Jazmin Sawyers (6.73m) and multiple global medallist Ese Brume from Nigeria (6.53m).
On the track, Kyle Langford won a high quality 800m in a lifetime best of 1:44.49 ahead of Morocco’s Moad Zahafi (1:44.57), Kenya’s Collins Kipruto (1:44.90) and Italy’s Simone Barontini (1:44.96) while Germany’s Constantin Preis eked out a narrow victory over France’s Ludvy Vaillant in the 400m hurdles - 49.04 to 49.07.
Full results here.