22nd June 2013 10:19
A thin margin of six points separated the leaders, with Slovenia leading the table with 125 points. Serbia and Croatia complete the top four with 102 and 91.5 points respectively.
Austria with 88 points in fifth is followed by Denmark and Israel who are engaged in an interesting battle to avoid relegation with the Scandinavian nation holder a slender lead of 3.5 points with a total of 83.5 points. Cyprus will find it extremely difficult to avoid relegation on Sunday as they ended the day reeling at the bottom of the table with 66 points.
Together Lithuania and Slovenia won 14 out of 21 events on day one, while the rest shared the remaining seven.
However the top performer of the day was neither a Lithuanian nor Slovenian, but the honour went to Olympic and European champion Sandra Perkovic for Croatia who registered an impressive win in the discus with a throw of 65.77 ahead of home athlete Zinaida Sendriute who finished with 63.03m.
Perkovic's throw was the best discus result across all the four leagues of the European Athletics Team Championships on Saturday. Snezana Rodic of Slovenia won the triple jump (-0.1) with a 14.07m jump, while her compatriot Martina Ratej threw 62.60 to take top points in javelin.
In the men's events, European indoor champion Asmir Kolasinac of Serbia won the shot with a 20.37m throw while Emir Bekric registered an equally impressive win in the 400m hurdles clocking 49.98.
2008 Olympic champion Primoz Kozmus won full points for Slovenia winning the hammer in 72.92m.
The hosts dominated running events with Lina Grincikaite winning the 100m in a time of 11.31 (+0.5), Agne Serksniene won the 400m clocking 52.81, Egle Balciunaite gathered full points in the 800m clocking 2:03.83, while Egle Stasiunaite claimed the 400m hurdles in 57.75. In women's 4x100m relay Slovenia however got the better of Lithuania taking victory in 44.73 to 44.84.
Austrian runners dominated the middle distance races with Andreas Vojta taking the 1500m in 3:50.53 and Brent Rowe took the 5000m race in 14:09.30.
Click here for complete results.