Miltiadis Tentoglou in Madrid (© Getty Images)
Two-time Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou sailed out to a world-leading 8.46m to dominate the long jump at the European Team Championships in Madrid on Saturday (28).
It was one of four championship records set on the penultimate day of action in the Spanish capital, where Italy has taken the overall lead with just 12 disciplines left to contest.
Tentoglou, whose medal-winning streak came to an end earlier this year at the World Indoor Championships, led from the outset with an opening leap of 8.15m. He then followed it with what would prove to be the best mark of the day, 8.46m (1.1m/s), and backed it up with an 8.44m effort in round four.
His winning marks bettered the previous championship record of 8.38m, set by Tentoglou in 2021. That was also the championship record of the forerunner to this event, the European Cup, shared by Robert Emmiyan and Kirill Sosunov.
Sweden’s Thobias Montler was second with 8.08m and world indoor champion Mattia Furlani was third (8.07m).
There was another world-leading performance in the jumps thanks to Czechia’s Jan Stefela, who cleared a PB of 2.33m – the best outdoor mark in the world this year – to win the men’s long jump by six centimetres.
The closest finish of the day came in the women’s 100m hurdles, where European indoor champion Ditaji Kambundji held off Nadine Visser by just two thousandths of a second, both women clocking 12.39 in a marginally wind-assisted race (2.2m/s).
Hammer legend Anita Wlodarczyk produced a season’s best of 73.34m to take command of the women’s hammer in round four, securing top points for Poland. In-form Finn Silja Kosonen was second with 73.09m.
There was double Dutch success in the 4x100m as the Netherlands won both the men’s (37.87) and women’s (42.02) races, breaking championship records and national records in both.
The other championship record on Saturday came in the women’s 800m, which was won by France’s Anais Bourgoin in 1:58.60.
Elsewhere, world champion Daniel Stahl took the men’s discus with 68.36m.
Italy goes into the final day with a leading tally of 290 points, giving them a relatively safe lead ahead of Germany (266) and Poland (256.5).
