Saga Vannisen wins European under-23 gold in the heptathlon – a top throw in the javelin decided the championship

Saga Vanninen, 20, won gold in the heptathlon at the under-23 European Athletics Championships in Espoo with a score of 6,317.

Saga Vanninen has won the under-23 European Championship in heptathlon. Vanninen scored 6,317 points at the European Championships in Espoo and won the European Championship by 61 points.

The Netherlands took silver Sophie Dokter with 6,256 points and bronze Estonia Pippi Lotta Enok with a score of 6,002.

The youth value competition win is the fourth in Vanninen’s career. He has won two world championships and one European championship in the under-20 category.

Vanninen, 20, is only competing in the under-23 series in his first season, so he can defend his championship in another two years.

Vanninen took his personal record of 6,391 in May in Austria. The result remains only 13 points A Swedish fairy tale About the Finnish record.

The score of the match that ended on Friday evening is the second best in Vanninen’s career.

This is how Vanninen’s match progressed

Vanninen started his match career strongly on Thursday. In the opening event in the 100-meter hurdles, Vanninen clocked a headwind time of 13.50, which is 16 hundredths of his record.

In height, Vanninen exceeded 177 with his second. Attempts at a record lateral height of 180 were good, but the bar did not stay on its supports. Holland’s Sofie Dokter jumped her record high of 189 and took the lead of the competition.

In his parade event in the ball, Vanninen desperately needed extra centimeters after two attempts, as his best was 14.00. He got them when the iron ball flew over a meter further with the last one, to 15.36, which is Vanninen’s new outdoor track record. Indoors he has pushed 16.12 meters, but outdoors his previous best was 15.08.

At the end of the opening day, Vanninen ran 200 meters close to his record with a time of 24.32. The time was only 0.02 seconds behind Vanninen’s career best. Dokter was slightly faster than Vanni at 200 meters and took the top spot back for himself. The difference between the two was only 13 points.

On Friday morning, Vanninen jumped in length with his first 602. He missed his record by 41 centimeters. Centimeters were eaten by the headwind, which blew at 1.6 meters per second at the time of Vanninen’s first attempt. Vanninen won the event, but beat Dokter by only seven cents, so the battle for victory was still wide open.

Vanninen clung to the European Championship gold by throwing his season’s best 46.55 in the javelin, while Dokter fell short of 42 meters. This is how Vanninen broke the gap to the Dutchman by exactly one hundred points before the 800 meter run.

At 800 meters, Vannis could afford to let Dokter run away by about seven seconds, but the Dutchman’s move was not enough against Vannis. Dokter won the heat in 2:15.84, while Vanninen crossed the finish line in 2:18.67.