Amadeus Graber in the decathlon high jump at the European U18 Championships in Jerusalem (© Getty Images)
Six European U18 Championships records were set on the final day of this year’s competition in Jerusalem, Israel, including impressive new standards by the German duo of Amadeus Graber and Frederick Weigel in the decathlon and 10,000m race walk on Thursday (7).
Graber was third overnight after five events – just 61 behind Croatia’s Roko Farkas, who was eventually to finish 11th – but was known to have a strong second day especially in the last two events, the javelin and 1500m.
A 4.40m vault moved the German up into second place after eight events and he then threw the javelin 55.57m despite sustaining a slight ankle injury to maintain his position.
With his joint strapped, Graber completed a painful three-and-three-quarter laps of the track in the last discipline in 4:32.21 to take the title with 7626 and win by just 17 points from Sweden’s Leo Goransson, who scored 7609 with France’s Alexandre Monagne third with 7591; 35 points covering the three medallists.
Weigel, son of 1983 world 50km race walk champion and 1988 double Olympic silver medallist Ronald Weigel, was in the lead almost from gun to tape in the first of 16 gold medals to be decided on the last day in Jerusalem.
Racing his first ever 10,000m on the track, Weigel started off fast and had a lead of 27 seconds over his nearest rival at the halfway point. Over the final six laps Italy’s Guiseppe Disabato started to close but left his challenge too late as Weigel crossed the line in 44:01.60 to take five seconds off the championship record. Disabato finished 14.95 seconds in arrears in a personal best of 44:16.55.
The only disappointment for Weigel was that his father, who is also his coach, wasn’t on hand to watch his triumph.
Now also the German head coach for race walking, Weigel senior is currently in the USA with the German team ahead of the forthcoming World Athletics Championships.
“My dad is also my coach and I think he’ll be proud of me,” said the teenager. “I hope he stayed up late to watch this on TV.”
Championship records in the women’s individual events fell to Great Britain’s 400m hurdler Ophelia Pye and Swedish long jumper Ayla Halberg Hossain.
Pye recovered quickly from heavily clipping the penultimate barrier and her stronger run in took her from third to first before winning in a British U18 best of 58.09, reducing this mark from the 58.53 she ran in her semi.
“It was really tough; I'm not going to lie. That last hurdle, I wasn't sure if I was going to fall over, I just about managed to hang in there,” said Pye, who is coached by 1968 Olympic champion in the event David Hemery.
Halberg Hossain, just 15 and one of the youngest competitors in the entire championships, leapt out to 6.39m (1.0m/s) in the second round of the long jump to add two centimetres to the championship record of Spain’s Maria Vicente from four years ago.
Mattia Furlani added the high jump gold to the long jump title the super-talented Italian had won on Tuesday.
Five men were left in the competition when the bar was raised to 2.15m but Furlani was the only one to go clear, doing so on his second attempt.
“The competition was tough today, especially when it comes to the way my muscles were reacting,” said Furlani, whose older sister Erika earned world U18 silver in this discipline in 2013. “In the end, the result came through but, psychologically, it was challenging, and I made some significant errors.”
Double triumphs for Norway and Spain
When Karsten Warholm decides to hang up his spikes, sometime in the distant future, Norwegian 400m hurdling should still be in good shape for a few more years thanks to Bastian Elnan Aurstad who won his specialist event in a world-U18-leading 50.89, which was also a Norwegian U18 best.
A second gold went to Norway on Thursday with Malin Hoelsveen winning a tactical 800m in 2:09.29 thanks to her superior speed down the home straight.
Spain also notched up two wins on Thursday as Sergio Del Barrio dominated the 2000m steeplechase throughout the race to win in 5:38.55 after his compatriot Sofia Santacreu had earlier won the 5000m race walk in 22:46.22, both times being national U18 bests.
Czech Republic’s Jakub Dudycha was the 800m winner in 1:51.35 after controlling the race from the front over the second lap, but the biggest cheers, perhaps of the entire four days, were reserved for the Israeli silver medallist Noam Mamu who got the host country’s first medal of any description in the history of the championships.
Bulgaria’s Lachezar Valchev was an impressive winner of the triple jump with a personal best of 15.76m while other wins went to Greece’s Iliana Triantafyllou with 4.05m in the pole vault, Veera Sauna-Aho threw 52.22m to make it a Finnish double in the Jerusalem javelin contests and Germany’s Curly Brown reached a personal best of 50.64m to win the discus.
In addition to Pye, Great Britain won the women’s medley relay in a European U18 best of 2:07.18 for this rarely run event and topped the medal table with eight golds, all coming in the women’s events, and 16 medals in total.
Phil Minshull for World Athletics
