19th June 2011 01:29
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| The Russians celebrate after winning the Stockholm 2011 SPAR European Team Championships for a second successive year on Sunday. |
As many expected, Russia won at the 2011 SPAR European Team Championships in Stockholm over the weekend but few pundits predicted that they would accumulate a record total of 385 points by the end of Sunday.
Following their five victories on Saturday they added another four on Sunday thanks to Tatyana Dektyareva in the 100m hurdles, long jumper Darya Klishina and the two 4x400m relay teams.
Germany, 2009 champions, moved up from third place 12 months ago with 331.5 points while Ukraine had their best result in the three years of the Championships when they got their first place on the podium with 304 points for third.
At the other end of the table, Czech Republic, Portugal and hosts Sweden finished in the bottom three and return to the First League in 2013 after getting promoted last year.
The SPAR European Team Championships will next be staged in two years time, at the British venue of Gateshead, because 2012 has the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki on its calendar.
Dektyareva back in front again
Dektyareva repeated her win from 12 months ago but it was a symptom of the wet conditions in the Swedish capital that she was almost half-a-second slower than in Bergen.
Running in the B race, she clocked 13.16 and no one in the A race could better her time.
Klishina, the 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships gold medallist then registered the second Russian victory of the day within the space of two minutes after leaping to 6.74m in the second round.
However, local hero Carolina Klüft, with her left calf strapped, got plenty of cheers after she produced her best jump since 2008 in the opening round and went out to 6.73m, eventually finishing second.
The big surprise was the Belarus’ 2011 world leader Veranika Shutoka, who has jumped 6.95m this year, could do no better than 6.53m and finished in fifth place.
Much of the credit for Russia’s success should also go to their middle-distance men who consistently surpassed expectations. One example was Yegor Nikolayev, who finished second in the 3000m on Sunday.
If it had not been for three no jumps, and subsequently no points, by the 2009 European Athletics Junior Championships triple jump champion Aleksey Fyodorov in his specialist event, Russia’s domination would have been even more emphatic.
Lemaitre shines in the rain
Arguably the top individual performance of the second day was Christophe Lemaitre’s 200m win in 20.28.
Lemaitre, the 2010 European Athlete of the Year, clocked the second fastest time by a European in 2011 but such a statistic does not tell the full story of his run.
It was a truly commanding performance by the Frenchman and he would have almost certainly gone under his national record of 20.16 set last year if the conditions had been a bit more favourable.
After showing off his improved start again, he was running into the teeth of a 2.8mps wind and in cold and wet conditions.
He finished more than half-a-second in front of his nearest rival, Poland’s Kamil Krynski, who won the separate B race in 20.83.
Germany’s 2009 World Championships discus gold medallist Robert Harting was equally dominant in his competition and the Berliner would have won with any one of four throws, with his best effort of 65.63m coming in the third round.
He had three throws over 65 metres in his series - 64.42m, 65.50m, 65.63m, 65.46m - which augers well for the defence of his title in Daegu, South Korea, later this summer.
No one else could master the slippery circle with anything like Harting’s aplomb and his nearest rival was more than three metres in arrears.
Great Britain’s Charlene Thomas pulled off one of the most unexpected wins of this year’s Championships when she swept through the field on the last lap, after lying eighth at the bell, finishing off with a devastating burst of speed over the final 50 metres.
She stopped the clock in a season’s best of 4:06.85 after squeezing between Russia’s Yekaterina Martynova and Ukraine’s 2010 winner Anna Mischenko 40 metres from the line.
Martynova couldn’t respond and finished second in 4:07.08 while European-leader Mischenko was third in 4:07.27.
Emma Green Tregaro gave the generous Swedish hosts their only win of the weekend but the women’s high jump showed just how dramatically different the conditions were on the second day, after the sunshine that was enjoyed by everyone on Saturday.
Four women were over the modest height of 1.89m but Green, the 2010 European Athletics Championships silver medallist, was the only one who had progressed without bringing the bar down up to that point.
None of the remaining quartet could get over 1.92m in the difficult conditions and so Green took maximum points.
Stockholm 2011 final team standings
1. Russia 385 pts
2. Germany 331.5
3. Ukraine 304
4. Great Britain and N.I. 289
5. France 284
6. Poland 264
7. Spain 246
8. Italy 237
9. Belarus 220
10. Czech Republic 211
11. Portugal 177.5
12. Sweden 159