by Alfonz Juck
Jimmy Gressier takes U23 10,000m for France, photo by Getty Images for European Athletics
First win for France
GAVLE (SWE, Jul 11): On day one of the European U23 Championships, France’s Jimmy Gressier won the first gold medal in the 10,000m, winning on his debut in 28:44.17 ahead of Israel’s Tadesse Getahon (28:46.97) and Great Britain’s Emile Cairess (28:50.21). Germany’s Sophie Weissenberg also leads the heptathlon after four events with 3675 points ahead of Poland’s Adrianna Sulek (3589) and Belgium’s Hanne Maudens (3576) with Geraldine Ruckstuhl (3575) and Sarah Lagger (3523), who set a big PB of 15.23m in the shot put, also in close contention. France’s Solene Ndama withdrew from the competition after no-heighting at 1.67m and Finland’s Maria Huntington, who led after the high jump, withdrew due to a hamstring injury after the shot put. On the in-field, Poland’s Konrad Bukowiecki made the final with his first throw of 20.44m and Belarus’ Aliaksei Katkavets set a national U23 record of 82.46m (by 1 cm improvement) to qualify furthest for the javelin final. European champion Miltiadis Tentoglou also progressed through to the long jump final with 7.80m but the best jump of the day went to Estonia’s Hans-Christian Hausenberg who set a wind-aided 7.98m. Elsewhere on the track, Germany’s Marvin Schulte and Ewa Swoboda from Poland were the fastest in the 100m semifinals against strong headwinds with 10.49 and 11.41 respectively. European champion Elvira Herman was the fastest in the 100m hurdles heats in 13.25 against a 2.5 m/s headwind.
