Reigning European indoor and outdoor champion Wilma Murto from Finland opened her season in auspicious form on home soil in Kuortane on Saturday (6).
On her season’s debut, Murto cleared a Finnish indoor record and early season world lead of 4.81m on her first attempt - the second highest vault of her career either indoors or outdoors - before taking three attempts at an outright national record of 4.86m.
“I'm not terribly surprised, but really satisfied,” said Murto, who cleared 4.75m at the same meeting last year, as quoted by yleisurheilu.fi.
Murto duly added one centimetre to her Finnish indoor record, improving her previous mark of 4.80m which she cleared at the Istanbul 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships to accompany her outdoor gold medal from Munich 2022.
Murto made her global breakthrough outdoors with bronze at the 2023 World Athletics Championships and the flying Finn is hoping to continue her medal-winning habit by taking medals at all three major championships in 2024.
“The idea is to come away with a medal around the neck from all the prestigious competitions of the season - the World Indoor Championships, the European Championships in Rome and the Olympic Games in Paris,” said Murto on her season's ambitions.
Elsewhere around Europe…
Luxembourg’s Patrizia Van der Weken began her season with yet another national record in the 60m, clocking 7.17 in the heats in Luxembourg on Saturday (6) before winning the final in 7.21.
2016 Olympic silver medallist Mirela Demireva from Bulgaria returned to form with victory in Herzebrock-Clarholz on Sunday (7) with a 1.92m clearance in her first competition since August 2022.
Former European U18 100m finalist Andriy Vasyliev improved from 6.73 to 6.61 in the 60m at the Christmas Starts meeting in Kyiv. Yuliya Levchenko cleared 1.85m in the high jump on her season’s debut.
Phil Healy clocked 23.43 for 200m and 53.18 for 400m on her season’s debut in Abbotstown on Saturday (6).
At the England Combined Events Championships in Sheffield on Sunday (7), Abigail Pawlett won the pentathlon title with a lifetime best of 4325 points. Sam Talbot won the heptathlon title with 5624 points.
Fitwi and Kejeta seal Olympic qualifying standards in Dubai
Germans Samuel Fitwi and Melat Kejeta both comfortably secured the Paris 2024 Olympic marathon qualifying standards in another fast edition of the Dubai Marathon on Sunday (7).
In just the third marathon of his career, Fitwi finished fifth in the men’s race in 2:06:27 - easily inside the Olympic qualifying standard of 2:08:10.
Just over one month after a DNF in the Valencia Marathon, Kejeta finished fourth in the women’s race in 2:21:47 to move to second on the German all-time list behind former London and Berlin Marathon winner Irina Mikitenko with her 2:19:19 clocking from 2008.