European Athletics is pleased to announce that France’s Renaud Lavillenie and Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands have been voted by the fans and media as European Athletes of the Month for February.
Lavillenie, the European pole vault champion from Zurich won all four of his meetings this month, three of them higher than six metres, including a world-leading 6.02m clearance in Berlin on 14 February.
Second in the men's vote was Great Britain's Mo Farah the reigning double Olympic, European and world champion set a two miles world best of 8:03.40 in Birmingham on 21 February and also clocked a world-leading and national record of 7.33.1 over 3000m in the same race.
In third was Portugal’s Nelson Evora, now 30, and after several years of injury problems, the 2008 Olympic triple jump champion returned to form at his national club championships in Pombal on 22 February and bounded out to a European-leading mark of 17.19m.
On the women’s side, the award went to Hassan, the 21-year-old 2014 European 1500m champion ran a world-leading time and national record of 4:00.46, more than two second faster than ever before indoors, at the IAAF Indoor Permit meeting in Stockholm on 19 February.
In second place was Great Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson who set a UK absolute high jump record of 1.97m in Sheffield on 14 February and then leapt a British indoor record and European-leading long jump mark of 6.93m at the IAAF Indoor Permit meeting in Birmingham a week later.
In third was Dutch star Dafne Schippers, the multi-talented 2014 European Athlete of the Year won all four of her 60m races this month and sped to a European-leading time of 7.09, in Berlin on 14 February, a time only beaten by one other sprinter in the world this winter.
The European Athlete of the Month initiative was launched in January 2007 and is designed to recognise outstanding performers at all levels of the sport in Europe.
No athlete who has previously served a two-year doping ban can be nominated for the European Athlete of the Month.