Bulgaria’s Dacheva and Romania’s Oprea shine in Sofia – European Athletics(EAA) -News

Petia Dacheva provided the highlight of the Pavel Pavlov International Athletics Meeting in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, a European Athletics Outdoor Classic Meeting, when she bounded out to meeting record 14.45m in Triple Jump on Saturday.

With a perfect 2.0mps wind on her back, she added 25 centimetres to her previous best, which was set only two weeks ago at the European Athletics Classic Meeting in Istanbul.

There was also a good performance in the men’s Triple Jump, won by Romania’s Marian Oprea with a slightly wind-assisted 17.31m. He had a legal best of 16.96m.

After missing the whole of 2009 due to knee problems and then surgery, Oprea has the ambition of getting on the European Athletics Championships podium for the third successive time when he travels to Barcelona next month. He was the 2002 European Athletics Championships silver medallist and then got the bronze medal four years ago.

Greece’s Kostadinos Baniotis equalled the meeting record in the High Jump when he was the only man to go over 2.24m while Poland’s Przemysław Czajkowski also got a meeting record when he tossed the Discus out to 61.68m.

There was a also Romania women’s double on the track when Liliana Popescu and Cristina Vasiloiu won the women’s 800m and 3000m Steeplechase, in season best times of 2:02.01 and 9:43.36 respectively.

The breeze that helped the horizontal jumpers was unfortunately were in the faces of the sprinters.

Bulgaria’s Vanya Stambolova clocked 23.55 to win the 200m while the Czech Republic’s Jan Veleba posted 10.57 in the 100m.

European Athletics(EAA) -News