Germany opened their medal count at the European indoor championships with a double gold showing from Ralf Bartels and Carolin Nytra, yesterday.
Bartels, twice world bronze medallist and 2006 European champion, managed a best of 21.16 metres to win the shot put ahead of team-mate David Storl (20.75m), with Russian Maksim Sidorov (20.55) claiming bronze.
“My first attempt was really zero, so I knew I had to ‘deliver’ something,” Bartels said, adding that a celebration would wait until after the women’s shot competition today and that it would include a trip to the Eiffel Tower.
“In the winter time the queues won’t be as long as in the summer of 2003 (when the world championships were held in Paris).”
After Bartels’s success, Nytra then stormed to the women’s 60m hurdles title, adjudged to have nipped Briton Tiffany Ofili in a photo-finish, with both athletes timed at 7.80sec. Norway’s Christina Vukicevic claimed bronze (7.83).
Nytra revealed she had heeded the sage advice of her coach and dipped at full tilt at the line.
“He told me this race would be won in the finish and he was right. At the start I saw the shot putters with our national flag in the finish area and said to myself ‘this is a sign for me’.”
There was also a gold medal for home fans to shout about as Antoinette Nana Djimou Ida produced the run of her life in the 800m to win the women’s pentathlon, a competition missing the presence of Briton Jessica Ennis.
Going into the last of the five-discipline event 112 points off Austra Skujyte, she managed to finish 7sec ahead of the Lithuanian, enough to end on 4723 points and a winning margin of just 17. Remona Fransen, of the Netherlands, took bronze (4665).
The fourth and final gold of the day went to Petr Svoboda, of the Czech Republic. He won the men’s 60m hurdles in 7.49sec ahead of Frenchman Garfield Darien (7.56) and Belgian Adrien Deghelt (7.57).
French double jump medal hope Teddy Tamgho also had a successful first day of what promises to be a charged weekend for him.
The reigning world indoor triple jump champion and world record holder jumped a best of 7.97m in the long jump to qualify for today’s final and then topped triple jump qualification with 17.06m.
There was also a comfortable outing for defending 3,000m champion Mohammed ‘Mo’ Farah, of Britain.
Farah never looked under threat in his heat and finished in full control of the race’s result in 8min 2.36sec to make today’s final as firm favourite.
There was an early shock at the Bercy Sports Centre in east Paris when Germany’s Katja Demut, who set the European lead this year, failed to qualify for the women’s triple jump final.