Belgium’s Eliott Crestan opened his season in excellent form by running the fastest ever indoor 600m by a European at the LFBA Indoor Championships in Louvain-la-Neuve on Saturday (25) evening.
Crestan stopped the clock at 1:14.92 to become the first European to break the 1:15-barrier indoors for the seldom-contested discipline. The previous fastest time recorded indoors was 1:15.09 set by Russia’s Saveliy Savlukov last year.
Crestan’s time was also the eighth fastest time indoors in history. The world all-time list is headed by 2019 world champion Donavan Brazier from the United States with 1:13.77.
Now 25, Crestan enjoyed his best season to date last year, winning bronze at the World Athletics Indoor Championships and slashing through Ivo Van Damme’s legendary long-standing Belgian 800m record with 1:42.43 in July.
Crestan will be targeting another podium finish at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn from 6-9 March two years after winning bronze in Istanbul.
Ogunleye approaches the 20 metre-line in Nordhausen
Reigning Olympic champion Yemisi Ogunleye improved her world lead to 19.77m at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Challenger event in Nordhausen on Saturday (25).
Ogunleye, who opened her season last weekend with victory in Dortmund with 18.98m, also added 20 centimetres to her meeting record.
“I told my coaches Iris Manke-Reimers and Artur Hoppe beforehand that I wanted to beat my own meeting record. That was obviously an enormous challenge. I also wanted to show myself, ‘Yemi, nothing is impossible,” she said as quoted by Leichtathletik.de.
This was also the third best mark of her career behind her winning put of 20.00m from Paris 2024 and her outright lifetime best of 20.19m set at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow last year when she won silver.
Ogunleye won by almost two metres from her German teammate Alina Kenzel (18.07m) with double European medallist Jorinde Van Klinken from the Netherlands third (18.04m).
Reigning European indoor champion Zane Weir won the men’s competition with 20.53m.
Elsewhere around Europe…
On the road to the Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships, Samuel Chapple smashed the Dutch indoor 1500m record with an early season world lead and outright lifetime best of 3:35.61 in the host venue of Apeldoorn on Saturday, winning ahead of Mahadi Abdi Ali in 3:36.28.
20-year-old Myre Van der Schoot won the women’s 400m in 52.57 ahead of European 400m hurdles bronze medallist Cathelijn Peeters (52.63) and Jonas Phijffers won the men’s 400m in 46.29. Marijn Kieft also cleared a Dutch U20 record of 4.40m in the pole vault.
2022 European 800m champion Mariano Garcia won the 1000m at the Antequera Indoor Match on Saturday in a Spanish indoor record of 2:16.25 while Esther Guerrero won the 2000m in a national indoor record of 5:42.43.
Other highlights included Maria Perez winning the 60m in 7.21 and Brit Cari Hughes winning the 3000m in 8:50.40 ahead of Marta Garcia (8:51.63) and Nathalie Blomqvist who was third in a Finnish indoor record of 8:51.95.
Reigning European indoor 60m champion Mujinga Kambundji began her season with a 7.14 clocking in the 60m heats in Magglingen before winning the final in 7.18. Her younger sister Ditaji also opened her season with a 7.94 clocking in the 60m hurdles.
Olympic 400m silver medallist and European 400m champion Natalia Bukowiecka clocked 36.48 in the 300m in Spala on Saturday to equal the world lead at the distance.
In Wroclaw, 22-year-old Maciej Wyderka ran a fast 1:45.47 800m lifetime best on Saturday.
Steven Mills for European Athletics