European Team Championships First League preview: Czechs best bet to bounce straight back – European Athletics (EAA) – News

The Czech Republic, Portugal and Sweden were relegated from the SPAR European Team Championships last year but all three have the strength and desire to make an immediate return to the top flight of the world’s premier team competition for nations in Budapest this weekend.

On paper, the Czech team appears the strongest of the 12 teams in the Hungarian capital, which staged the 1998 European Athletics Championships, with their squad including Javelin world record holder Barbora Špotáková and 400m hurdler Zuzana Hejnová.

Špotáková’s form has been a bit erratic this season as she has battled with Achilles problems but at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Rome just over a week ago, she threw a meeting record of 68.66m, the second best performance in the world this year, while Hejnová set a national record of 54.13 in her event, the second best time by a European in 2010 so far.

Good points should also come in the 200m from the much improved former multi-eventer and long jumper Denisa Rosolová while the Czech team also have Jirina Ptacnikova in the Pole Vault and Vera Cechlova in Discus. Some of the biggest contributions to the Czech tally will come from their women but on their men’s side Vitezslav Veselý will be looking to get maximum points in the Javelin.

Portugal has two familiar names in their squad: the reigning European 100m and 200m champion Francis Obikwelu, who will just run the shorter event and a leg on the 4x100m relay in Budapest, and the 1996 Olympic Games 10000m champion Fernanda Ribeiro, who will go over 5000m.

Ribeiro, now 41, is still running well as her performance at the recent European Cup 10000m proved, but she will have a hard job to hold off Turkeys’ former world record holder over the distance Elvan Abeylegesse, who also won the 2008 Olympic Games silver medal.

Sweden has Susanna Kallur in action for them, the 2006 European Athletics Championships 100m hurdles gold medallist having set the fastest time by a European at 12.78 at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in New York last Saturday and putting behind her 18 months of injury misery which saw her miss all of last year.

However, Kallur will face a strong field which includes Belgium’s 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships 60m winner Eline Berings, the Czech and Turkish record holders Lucie Skrobakova and Nevin Yanit as well as Ireland’s 2006 European Athletics Championships silver medallist Derval O´Rourke.

Another Swedish athlete doing well on the comeback trail and who will be in Budapest is the reigning European Triple Jump champion Christian Olsson, while the in-form Linus Thornblad goes in the High Jump after also winning in New York.

The men’s 400m should also be another of the highlights of the weekend with Ireland’s two-time European indoor champion David Gillick, who clocked an Irish record of 44.77 last year, up against Sweden’s Johan Wissman and the very good Belgian Jonathan Borlee, who was just one-hundredth slower than Gillick in 2009.

Hungary’s Krisztián Pars, a winner at this event last year, will get plenty of local support in the Hammer while his Discus throwing team-mate Zoltán Kovágó, who has won four of his six outings this summer and already thrown 69.69m this summer, will be looking to turn the tables on Estonia’s Gerd Kanter after having to settle for second place behind reigning Olympic champion 12 months ago.

European Athletics (EAA) – News