Nadezhda Ostapchuk of Belarus - 4th in Olympia (© Getty Images)
Ulm, GermanyThe DLV Gala, once a June fixture in the Ruhr area of Germany but recently taken on the road to Erfurt and now to Ulm, had two obvious missions. One was to give the top German athletes a high-level competition for achieving the Helsinki performance standards. The other was to assist the federation in selecting its team for the European Cup competition next weekend in Florence.
Helsinki on their minds
Most of the German athletes on Sunday night (12 June) had their eyes on the Helsinki gateway, figuring that Florence would take care of itself. The difficulty lay in the German federation’s insistence that all athletes wishing to go to the World Championships crack the A-standard twice during the season.
As difficult as this may seem - and with the recent cold and rainy weather in central Europe standing as an uncontrollable hindrance to optimal performances - several German athletes cemented their early August schedules with outstanding performances here.
One of those securing a trip to the Nordic lands was Mark Frank, who won the men’s Javelin Throw with 81.85. The 27-year-old Rostocker, already the winner on the strength of his leadoff 79.74, stood at the runway for his final attempt. With nothing to lose, he broke through the Helsinki A-standard of 81.80 for the second time this year, this time by a scant five centimetres. (Frank, ever the minimalist, already had an 81.90 on his resumé, as a total of only fifteen centimetres fulfilled his federation’s requirement for a pair of superlative performances.)
“It was for me personally most important to achieve the Helsinki norm,” said Frank. “Although the conditions were optimal today, all of us came to the competition with this hanging over our heads.”
Finishing behind Frank was Christian Nicolay, the sixth placer at the Paris World Championships two years ago, with 79.45.
Nerius’ 64.56 assures comfortable win
Athens silver medallist, Steffi Nerius, already with a pair of qualifying marks this year, won the women’s Javelin Throw with 64.56. Any of her five legal throws would have been sufficient for the victory, as Christina Obergföll finished second with 62.64. No other competitor surpassed sixty metres.
First 20m women’s put of the year
The day’s lone world-leading performance came in the women’s Shot Put, as European indoor champion Nadezhda Ostapchuk of Belarus became the first over twenty metres this season with 20.09. Germans Nadine Kleinert and Petra Lammert took the next two places with 19.37 and 18.86, respectively.
Olympic men’s Shot Put finalist Ralf Bartels took an early lead with a leadoff 20.38 and improved to 20.43 to win that event. The Athens winner, Yuriy Belonog of Ukraine, was in range of the German all day long, but his best of the afternoon - a 20.39 in the final round - fell short.
Jamie Beyer of the US was the only other competitor to surpass twenty metres with 20.25 in third place.
Blaschek qualified but Felicien does not start final
Duane Ross of the US was the pacemaker in the men’s 110m Hurdles, as he blasted out to a significant lead over the first pair of barriers. Behind leader Ross, Germany’s top hurdler, Thomas Blaschek, was running even with Austria’s Elmar Lichtenegger in the early hurdles, but soon the Leipziger had left Lichtenegger behind and was challenging the American for the win. Only a last-gasp push by Ross saved him from being upset by Blaschek, as the final times of 13.41 and 13.42 indicated the closeness of the race.
For Blaschek - who had run a personal best of 13.41 two nights earlier in Kassel- it was the end of a highly successful weekend with his World Championships team nomination now a certainty.
“I had not thought I could run such a fast time again so soon,” said the former World junior silver medallist, “but I seem to be benefiting from the many races I have had this season which have put me into a consistent routine.”
The women’s hurdle race was almost as close. Linda Ferga-Khodadin of France, running on the inside of Kirsten Bolm, was locked in a tight battle with the German. Even with one of the slowest starts of the field, Ferga held on for a win in 12.73, a personal best.
Bolm’s 12.75 in second was also a career best, as Lolo Jones of the US completed the trio of sub-thirteen performances with 12.83. Like Blaschek, Bolm also cemented her spot on the German team for Helsinki with her second season performance under the required 12.96.
“I can easily live with second place when it is 12.75,” said the 30-year-old Bolm. “My main goal this season is to stay healthy.”
Perdita Felicien of Canada, the reigning World Champion, inexplicably did not start in the final after winning her preliminary heat in 13.06 against a headwind of 1.7.
Lalova - a class act
Ivet Lalova was easily the class of the field in the women’s 200 metres. The Bulgarian - fifth in Athens last year - had a five-metre lead coming off the curve and was unstoppable, even though her 23.12 clocking was a routine time for her.
As Lalova coasted into the finish, Birgit Rockmeier pulled away from Maren Schulze to take a clear second, 23.51 to 23.71.
The Bulgarian said of her race, “it was a little tough out there today. It was my fifth race of this past week. But as a pro athlete, I can live with this stress.”
The Men’s 200 metres was much more interesting, as Brian Dzingai of Zimbabwe and Olympic finalist Tobias Unger of German were locked in a tight battle with forty metres remaining. The US-based Dzingai barely prevailed at the end - 20.45 to 20.46 - but Unger was still ecstatic with his second surpassing of the A-standard (20.59) this season.
Ceplak breaks early and is pushed to tape
Reigning European women’s 800 metres champion, Jolanda Ceplak of Slovenia, won her specialty in 2:00.85, but the race appeared not to have fully developed according to plan.
Even before the end of the first lap, Ceplak grew impatient and raced past the pacemaker, catching the electric eye at 58.75 before setting out to run the final lap entirely from the front. Well before the 500-metre mark, Slovakia’s Lucia Klocova closed tightly on Ceplak’s shoulder and pushed her all the way down the final backstretch and throughout the final curve.
Only in the final forty metres did Ceplak secure the win as Klocova appeared to tire somewhat and faded to a 2:01.70 for second.
Monika Gradtzki was the first German to cross the finish line, clocking 2:02.14 in third, almost a full second ahead of Kathleen Friedrich (2:03.11).
Bungei takes men’s 800
One of Germany’s top runners of the moment, René Herms, came to Ulm still looking for his first season clocking under the required 1:45.40. The reigning European U23 champion was closing on winner Wilfried Bungei of Kenya as the two crossed the finish line, but the times of 1:45.71 and 1:45.99 for the two runners were outside of the seemingly elusive norm for Herms. Admittedly, this particular Helsinki A-norm is one of the most challenging on the list of standards.
Benjamin - Back from injury
A splendid performance in the men’s 400 metres came as Tim Benjamin’s season-best 45.17 easily brought a win to the former European Junior champion. The 23-year-old British runner was overjoyed with the performance, which came after his own version of a “winter of discontent”.
“I lost so much time to injury this winter, with a knee injury plus three weeks in hospital due to a bad spinal injection,” he said. “I’ve only been in spikes the past two weeks. What you saw today came primarily from the winter base I had before things started to go wrong.”
Simon Kirch of Germany was second in 45.88, with Poland’s Robert Mackowiak third at 46.39.
Claudia Marx, who two days ago in Kassel surpassed the Helsinki A-Norm with 55.59 in her first-ever 400 Hurdles competition, was hoping to do the same in the flat race over the same distance. Taking the inside-most lane to get some early pacing from the others in the all-German field, the 27-year-old Erfurt runner controlled the race throughout and ended with a 52.11 win, which lowered her own German season best. But it fell short of the 51.50 needed for a Helsinki nomination.
“I’ll run the hurdles next week in Florence,” Marx revealed, perhaps paving the way to the needed time or place to secure a Helsinki nomination in that event.
Claudia Hoffmann was a distant second with 52.78, as Korinna Fink (53.40) edged Ulrike Urbansky (53.42) for third.
Markov keeps local vault talents at bay
Just one week after his sub-par performance at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon, Dmitry Markov, the Edmonton World Champion in the Men’s Pole Vault, conquered a field of Germany’s seven best jumpers with a 5.75 win. Ironically, the Australian’s winning height was precisely the mark sought by the other jumpers.
The youngest of those German jumpers - 21-year-old Fabian Schulze - finished second with 5.70, equaling his personal best. Richard Spiegelburg, with 5.65, took third on a countback against Tim Lobinger, the only German vaulter presently qualified for Helsinki.
Gable Garenamotse of Botswana used a fourth-round 7.86 to slip past Jamaican James Beckford’s erstwhile leading 7.78 for a win in the Men’s Long Jump. Beckford seemingly became unraveled after being overtaken by Garenamotse. The Atlanta silver medallist’s next attempts were an unbelievably meagre 2.80 (albeit into a 2.4 wind) followed by two fouls.
Nils Winter, who yesterday posted an 8.21 Helsinki qualifier in a competition in Bad Langensalza, suffered a heel bruise and did not compete today.
In other events, Austria’s Andrea Mayr won the Women’s Steeplechase with 9:56.78, Corrine Müller of Switzerland took the Women’s High Jump with 1.92, and Russian Vyacheslav Shabunin won a tight battle against Franek Haschke of Germany in the Men’s 1500 Metres, 3:40.46 to 3:40.48.
Ed Gordon for the IAAF
