22nd June 2013 10:58
The battle for the second promotion place from the 3rd League is interestingly poised with a solitary point separating Moldova 247.5 and Latvia 246.5.
Luxembourg with 213.5 and Iceland 210 were placed fourth and fifth at the end of the day on Saturday.
Georgia (173), Bosnia Herzegovina (172) and Azerbaijan (171) were all stacked close at sixth, seventh and eighth places.
Arguably the best performance of the championships came from one of the youngest athletes at the event. 17-year-old Anita Hinriksdottir of Iceland stole the show winning the 800m in a national record time of 2:01.17.
Her time is the best European youth mark of the year and second best in the world behind gifted American Mary Cain (1:59.51). The home team’s success on day one was studded with seven wins by their athletes, national 100m record holder Adam Zavacky won the men’s 100m in 10.52 (0.0) and then helped his team take full points in the 4x100m playing the anchor role to perfection steering his team from the third place to first.
Dana Veldakova had no trouble in gathering full points for her team in the triple jump with a leap of 13.74. Lucia Slanickova’s 58.62 in the 400m hurdles was sufficient to keep rivals at bay.
Moldovan athletes dominated the track events with Olesia Cojuhari winning the 400m in 52.65; Alexei Cravenco 400m hurdles in 50.82; Ion Siuris 1500m in 3:49.80 and Roman Prodius taking the 5000m in 14:31.51.
Latvia managed only 3 wins on the day but the consistency of their athletes ensured that they finished the day on a strong note.
Armenia finished the day at ninth place with 149points, while the 10-12 places were taken by Monte Negro at 138, Malta 133.5 and Macedonia 109.5.
The bottom three teams were the Athletics Association of Small States of Europe (AASSE) 86, Andorra 63 and Albania 32.
Click here for complete results.