GERMAN MEETINGS: DÜSSELDORF: Packed arena, fantastic atmosphere, five German victories and five meeting records

“Again a meeting of superlatives: fantastic atmosphere, five meeting records and the national German athletics elite in Duesseldorf brought here by our Meeting Director Marc Osenberg, besides the Duesseldorf top junior athletes – perfect for the sports city of Duesseldorf. A big thank you also to title sponsors PSD Bank Rhein-Ruhr eG”, says Martin Ammermann, managing director of Duesseldorf Congress Sport & Event GmbH.

Right at the start of the meeting the first records were broken: Lightweight Pavel Maslak (Czech Republic) – the 22-year-old weighs just 67 kilos – clocked 45.81sec in the 400m  improving the seven year old meeting record of Irishman David Gillick by exactly one tenth of a second.

A few minutes later Poland’s Adam Kszczot completed a hat-trick winning the 800m for the third successive year after 2012 and 2013 and improved his own meeting record of 2012 by two hundredths of a second to 1:45.42min. Cuban Yuniel Perez in 6.50sec in the 60m and  Kenya’s Caleb Ndiku in 7:38.40min in the 3,000m achieved further meeting records.  

Meeting record number five was set by German Christina Schwanitz with 19.93m in the women’s shot put. “The crowds here were really enthusiastic, they were incited and cheered us on. But a two before the point would have been nice.” The women’s shot put event made its debut at the “PSD Bank Meeting”. Two-time World champion David Storl underlined that German shot putters are currently among the world’s top, winning the men’s event with 21.10m.   

Further German winners at the “PSD Bank Meeting” were Malte Mohr in the pole vault (5.65m), Kristin Gierisch in the women’s triple jump (14.13m) and Verena Sailer in the women’s 60m. Her 7.19sec did not only mean first place but also the qualification for the World Indoor Championships.

Harald Gehring

Results on website: www.psd-bank-meeting.de