As the 17th WIC in Birmingham came to an end, there were some remarkable and promising appearances from both Greek and Cypriot athletes.
-> Results
Biggest highlight was the bronze medal from the 2017 world champion, Katerina Stefanidi.
Stefanidi had to face some difficult opponents, such as Sandi Morris from the US, Anzhelika Sidorova from Russia, as well as Eliza McCartney from New Zealand. Stefanidi jumped 4.80m, as she failed on bigger heights, leaving Morris and Sidorova fighting for the first two places of the podium. Winner of the event was Morris passing over the tremendous height of 4.95m leaving Sidorov for the silver at 4.90m.
On men’s pole vault, the youngster Emmanouil Karalis, only 19 years of age, jumped over 5.80m. (NJR) leaving a big promise for the future.
In addition, Konstantinos Fillipidis, was only 10cm away from Karalis, having to settle from the 7th place, shared with the Swedish young athlete Armand Duplantis.
Winner of the event was the multiple times world champion and world record holder, Renaud Lavillenie of France, with 5.90m, following Sam Kendrics of the USA with 5.85m
On the triple jump, Paraskeyi Papachristou took the 6th place, jumping 14.05.
Miltiadis Tentoglou, on long jump despite his lack of experience managed to get on the 9th place landing at 7.82m
On the 400m. Maria Belimpasaki, made a promising for the future appearance, as she made it to the semi-finals of the event. Belimpasaki run 52.27 in the preliminaries, but unfortunately her way to the finals was stop as she was disqualified during the race of the semis.
Rafaela Spanoudaki took the 6th place at her heat in the preliminaries, running the 60m. in 7.40 seconds.
Hard of luck for Elisavet Pesiridou, as she got injured during the preliminaries of the 60m hurdles.
On the 60m hurdles, Kostantinos Douvalidis finished his race in the semifinals running 7.68 seconds.
Representing Cyprus, Milan Trajkovic, made a great appearance in the competition, as he made it to finals, while setting a new national record, running 7.51 seconds in the semis. Unfortunately his good luck changed in the finals as he was disqualified due to a false start.
The very first events of WICh were men’s and women’s high jump, taking place at the same time, and the winners were Russian -competing as Authorised Neutral- Athletes (Lasitskene & Lysenko)
One of the biggest highlights of the championship, during the last event of the championships the men’s 4x400m., was when the Polish relay team set a new world record of 3:01.77, leaving behind the USA with 3:01:97.
Unfortunately, its success was stigmatized by the numerous disqualifications given by the organizers.
USA earned 6 gold medals (and 18 in total) while Ethiopia won 4 – all in distances
