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News26 Feb 2001


Field events steal the show in Spain

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Phil Minshull for IAAF

26 February 2000 - Spain is renowned for its distance runners and walkers but it was the field event athletes who stole the show at the Spanish indoor championships held in Valencia over the weekend, setting three of the four new national records that were established.

The highlight of the weekend came right at the end of the two-day event when the 1999 IAAF women’s long jump world champion Niurka Montalvo flew out to 6.82 on her last jump, to improve from the indoor best of 6.79 she had leapt last month in Zaragoza. Montalvo is now aiming to add an IAAF world indoor gold medal to the one outdoors that she won in Seville two years ago, with only two jumps from Russia’s Lyudmila Galkina—Montalvo’s immediate predecessor as world champion—heading the Cuban-born jumper on this year’s world indoor rankings.

Behind Montalvo, came her training partner and the reigning IAAF world junior champion Conception Montaner, who showed that she has not had too much trouble adjusting to senior competition with a Spanish under-23 record of 6.61.

Both Marta Mendia and Ruth Beitia went over 1.94 in the women’s high jump to claim joint ownership of the Spanish indoor best, which is now one centimetre higher than Mendia’s outdoor record, but the title went to Mendia as a result of fewer failures in the competition.

Further records came in the men’s 60 with Venancio Jose speeding to a time of 6.62, and also in the women’s pentathlon where Maria Peinado racked up 4282 points.

There were no records in the men’s shot on this occasion but Spain’s gentle giant Manuel Martinez put on another authoritative display to take his eighth consecutive title with a winning effort of 20.64, nearly three metres clear of his nearest rival.

Martinez is the most consistent man in shot putting this winter and is the only athlete in the world to have gone further than 20.60 in three separate competitions. "I got fourth at the world indoors in Maebashi two years ago, a bronze at the European indoors last year and so I’m hopeful that the streak continues and I get a silver, or maybe even better, in Lisbon," said the 1993 European junior champion.

On a more solemn note, Martinez dedicated his victory to his friend Igor Cagigas, who was Spain’s seventh best shot putter with a best of 18.28, but who was killed in a car crash last month just two days before his 24th birthday.

Despite the field event athletes hogging the limelight, there were still some bitterly competitive middle distance races.

European 1,500 champion Reyes Estevez got a modicum of revenge for being ousted from the Spanish Olympic team by beating last year’s Spanish champion Juan Carlos Higuero at their specialist distance.

Estevez took the lead on the second lap and managed to repel the attacks from the rest of the field, before pulling away at the bell and crossing the line in 3:49.33. Higuero was second in 3:49.68 but secured his seat on the plane to Lisbon in the absence of Jose Antonio Redolat, Europe’s joint fastest man over 1,500 last year, who had to miss the championships through illness.

In the men’s 3,000, Antonio Jimenez held off the challenge of Yusef El Nasri to also win selection for Lisbon, Jimenez clocking 7:56.95 to El Nasri’s 7:57.20.

After the championships, the Spanish federation announced that they would be sending a squad of 10 men and 8 women to the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Lisbon in two weeks time, with Martinez and Montalvo going as prime contenders for gold medals.

Men - 60: Venancio Jose; 400: David Canal; 800: Roberto Parra; 1,500: Reyes Estevez, Juan Carlos Higuero; 3,000: Alberto Garcia, Antonio Jimenez; 60 hurdles: Hipolito Montesinos; pole vault: Montxu Miranda; shot: Manuel Martinez.

Women - 800: Mayte Martinez, Adoracion Garcia; 1,500: Nuria Fernandez; 3,000: Marta Dominguez, Cristina Petite; high jump: Marta Mendia, Ruth Beitia, long jump: Niurka Montalvo.

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