Nafissatou Thiam is closing in on a third successive Olympic heptathlon title after an excellent performance in the javelin on Friday (9) morning.
Thiam and overnight leader Katarina Johnson-Thompson were evenly matched in the long jump - 6.41m to 6.40m - but the landscape of the competition changed significantly in the javelin.
Johnson-Thompson performed to par in the first pool of the javelin with a season’s best of 45.49m - less than one metre shy of her lifetime best of 46.14m from last year’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest where she won gold - but Thiam made a clear statement with the first throw of the second pool, launching the javelin out to 54.04m.
Thiam didn’t improve with her subsequent two throws but her first round effort gives the 29-year-old a comfortable rather than unassailable 121-point cushion, roughly 8.5 seconds, ahead of this evening’s 800m at 8.25pm local time.
And there could be a brace of medals for Belgium this evening. Switzerland’s Annik Kalin is third with one event remaining with 5894 points albeit by just five points ahead of Noor Vidts who has a much faster lifetime best in the 800m - 2:08.50 to 2:13.73.
Vidts, a two-time world indoor champion in the pentathlon, produced a lifetime best of 45.00m in the javelin to firmly embellish her medal ambitions.
Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallist Anouk Vetter from the Netherlands withdrew from the competition before the javelin.
Nine European team progress to 4x400m finals
Two days after winning Olympic 400m silver in a European record of 43.44, Matthew Hudson-Smith produced a 43.87 leg for the Brits who finished second in the first heat of the men’s 4x400m in 2:58.88 behind Botswana, whose team included last night’s Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo, in 2:57.88.
Host nation France won the second heat in 2:59.53 ahead of Belgium (2:59.84) and Italy (3:00.26), the latter benefitting from the disqualification of Nigeria who had initially finished second.
The Belgians were anchored home by veteran Kevin Borlee who qualified for his fifth successive Olympic 4x400m final.
There will also be ample European interest in the women’s 4x400m final with Great Britain (3:24.72), France (3:24.73), Belgium (3:24.92), the Netherlands (3:25.03) and Ireland (3:25.05) all advancing through the heat.
The theme of French success continued in the 800m and 100m hurdles semifinals with recently crowned European champions Gabriel Tual and Cyrena Samba-Mayela progressing to tomorrow’s finals.
Tual finished second in his 800m semifinal in 1:45.16 behind reigning world champion Marco Arop from Canada in 1:45.05 while Samba-Mayela, who has struggled to find her best form after a bout of coronavirus, qualified for the 100m hurdles final as one of the two non-automatic qualifiers with 12.52.
In-form Nadine Visser from the Netherlands finished second in her semifinal in 12.43 to progress through to tomorrow evening’s final.
Steven Mills for European Athletics