|
Greek Juniors, Under-23’s, impress at Euro championships
By HellenicAthletes Staff
| Tuesday, July 28 2009 6:17:48 PM |
| |
|
|
Greece’s senior track & field competitors may be having a rough season, but those relishing the opportunity to succeed them performed very nicely at two just completed European championships.
|
At the 20th European Athletics Junior Championships, which ended on Sunday in Novi Sad, Serbia, Greece did not come away with a medal.
But the young 200m sprinter Likourgos Tsakonas greatly impressed, breaking the National Junior Record with a time of 20.94 seconds in his semi-final. He went on to finish in 4th place in the final with a 21.16.
The previous record was from the World Junior Championships in Seoul in 1992, and was held by Kostas Kenteris at 21.05 seconds.
Tsakonas, 19, was the winner of the 200m final in June at the “Thessaloniki 2009” meet.
|
|
 |
Germany finished atop the medal standings with 25, followed by Russia with 22 and Ukraine with 5. The individual highlight of the championships was the 100m European junior record of 10.04 by French sprinter Christophe Lemaître.
Earlier in the month, Greece won three medals at the European Under-23 Track and Field Junior Championship in Kaunas, Lithuania, including a gold medal in the women’s triple-jump, where Parashevi Papachristou recorded a 14.34 meters on her 1st of 6 attempts. It was the best jump of the competition and also a new personal record for the 20-year-old jumper.
Spyros Lembesis won a bronze medal in the javelin with a throw of 79.37 meters, and has qualified for the World Championships in Berlin next month. Dimitrios Patsoukakis added another bronze in the pole-vault, where he equaled the national junior record of Costas Philippidis with 5.55 meters.
Russia, Great Britain, Germany and Poland finished atop the medals table.
*****
© 2009 HellenicAthletes.com.
All Rights Reserved.
This article may NOT be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of the editor, in accordance with United States and international copyright laws. Selective quotations are permissible as long as this website is acknowledged through hyperlink to: www.hellenicathletes.com
|
|
