By Yavuz YAVUZ in Ataköy
Ataköy Arena hosted the Balkan Indoor Athletics Championships once more, after a one-year break. The event in 2023 had been cancelled following the earthquakes in Turkey, and the 2024 edition has been Ataköy’s welcome back an international event almost a year after the 2023 Euro Indoors. As a significant part of major Balkan stars skipped the event, the medalists were awarded with modest marks.
GEGA MAKES EVENT HISTORY
Luiza Gega, the defending European champion in women’s 3000m steeplechase, made Balkan Indoors history by achieving the 1500m-3000m double and bringing her overall gold medal tally to two-digit numbers. The Albanian, formerly tied with eight-time gold-medalist shot putter Gheorghe Guset of Romania, added two more golds to her collection within an hour. Racing very comfortably, Gega put a two-second distance in the 1500m final and a dashing six-second margin for the 3000m gold, with her closest competitors.
Turkey’s Emel Dereli also reached double digits, this time in her overall medal tally in women’s shot put. The three-time Balkan indoor champion was surpassed by Moldova’s Dimitriana Bezede once more after the 2020 contest. With the silver medal winning shot of 16.80m, Dereli won her 10th Balkan Indoors medal. In the same event, Maria Magkoulia won bronze with a throw of 16.04m and became the first Greek women’s shot put medalist in 15 years, after Irini Terzoglou won silver in 2009.
SLOVENES TOP THE SPRINTS
Slovenian runners topped half of the individual sprint podiums with a staggering dominance in 60m and 60m hurdles races. The only time a Slovenian was crowned in these events was 10 years ago when Marina Tomic won the women’s 60m hurdles gold. In the 2024 edition of Balkan Indoors, Filip Jacob Demsar and Nika Glojnaric won the hurdles races with 7.70 and 8.08 seconds, respectively. In men’s 60m, Anej Curin Prapotnik won his first international title in 6.66 seconds.
Moreover, Polyniki Emmanouilidou won Greece’s first women’s 60m gold in 10 years with a comfortable run of 7.30 seconds. Another highlight of these races was Croatia’s Mia Wild, who won two medals, a silver in the flat course and a bronze in hurdles.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
Turkey topped the medal table with five golds and 18 overall medals in the home event and the country’s former world U20 400m hurdles champion Berke Akçam made the biggest headline. With a run of 46.43 seconds in men’s 400m, Akçam recorded the second fastest mark in Turkey’s all-time list and U23 national record. In women’s 400m, Edanur Tulum won Turkey’s first medal in the event in a decade behind Romania's Alexandra Stefania Uta.
In men’s 1500m final, Yervand Mkrtchyan won Armenia’s first track medal in Balkan Indoors history as he topped the race with a mark of 3:44.55. The country’s event legend, five-time triple jump titlist Levon Aghasyan, on the other hand, was edged by Can Özüpek of the host nation.
Furthermore, the 2024 edition saw Romania win its least number of medals in the event’s history. The Balkan Indoors powerhouse remained in single-digit numbers for the first time with an overall tally of seven medals, including three golds.
