By Şevket F. ERBAY
Once, Greek jumper Miltiadis Tentoglou came to the Balkan Seniors Championships for the first time, he wasn’t a known lad. He won the long jump title by almost half a meter in the Bulgarian city of Stara Zagora eight years ago; he narrowly missed the championship record on his first try. Then he won the European gold shortly after, which was the starting point on the path to greatness to this day.
Miltos revisited Balkan Championships for the fourth time this week in Volos, a city in the Thessaly region of central Greece. He had to face one of the world's whizkids, Bozhidar Saraboyukov of neighbouring Bulgaria, in the most anticipated battle of the championships programme. The two-time Olympic gold medallist opened his account with a blast: 8.36m (-0.3) leap over the sand. With a slight minus breeze, he broke the championship record set by Nenad Stekic of Yugoslavia, who recorded an 8.25 mark at Karaiskakis Stadium 47 years ago, when he eventually won the gold with an 8.27 windy jump. He fisted pump and no more celebration. Tentoglou tried two more jumps and fouled both before deciding to pass on the remaining attempts. It's still enough to secure the fourth Balkan victory for the Greek and get one step closer to all-time great Stekic, who won six golds in 1973-80.
Serbia’s 19-year-old talent Luka Boskovic defeated Bozhidar Saraboyukov for the silver in the very last try. He jumped a personal best of 8.19 metres, surpassing the Bulgarian by 15 centimetres. Saraboyukov produced a series of valid jumps between 7.87 and 8.04, the mark brought him only bronze. The competition became the highest-classified long jump contest ever held in the Balkans, with all three medallists going over 8 metres and a total of 24.59 metres.
On the first day of the competition, Turkey was the highest-flying team at Panthessaliko Stadium. The Crescent-Star Team claimed eight gold medals in five hours. Ismail Nezir opened their medal account with a superb run in the 400m hurdles, shattering Yasmani Copello’s championship record with a time of 48.33 seconds. He established an unassailable 1.22-second gap to Austria’s Niklas Strohmayer-Dangl, two-time Balkan champion himself.
Throughout the end of the programme, the 32-year-old Salih Teksöz retained his 1500 metres title convincingly. Teksöz crashed the 22-year-old championship record, clocking 3:38.75 and finishing well ahead of Nino Jambresic.
Bulgaria’s Hristo Iliev secured the first 100 metres title for Bulgaria in 13 years, as Bosnian putter Mesud Pezer returned to the top after three years. The three-time Olympian posted 20.29 and became the only man to go beyond the 20-metre line. Similarly, Greece’s Christos Frantzekakis claimed his third Balkan title and produced the farthest throw at the championships since 2004. Interestingly, Albanian Markela Mema just edged past Cypriot Iosif Kesidis by one centimetre for silver, and brought the first hammer medal to his country in 28 years.
Romania’s Andrea Miklos won two golds on the day, taking the 400 metres (52.26) and the mixed relay. Özlem Becerek of Turkey produced her best throw of the year with 59.10, exactly one meter ahead of the powerful Moldovan Alexandra Emilianov. Becerek denied Emilianov’s title defence as the crowned Balkan champion for the fourth time.
