Greek athletes’ sweet results at Balkan championship
Greece finished second in the Balkan Indoor Track and Field Championship held at Neo Faliron on Saturday. Trailing only Romania in the final table, Greece’s athletes had several good performances, including that of high-jumper Kostas Baniotis. He went over 2.25 meters to reach the limit for qualifying for the European Athletics Indoor Championship next month in Turin, Italy. He finished second after Serb Dragutin Topic, who leaped 2.28 meters. Another Greek athlete, Dimitris Chondrokoukis reached 2.22 meters. «I am very happy to have made the 2.25-meter limit; I could have reached 2.30 meters had it not been for a couple of errors,» said Baniotis. Pole-vaulter Dimitra Emmanouil broke her personal best record with a jump at 4.25 meters to finish first. Tonia Stergiou won the women’s high-jump event going over 1.84 meters. In triple-jump, Dimitris Tsiamis measured a season’s best at 16.54 meters – just 6 centimeters short of the limit for Turin. In the women’s triple jump, Voula Papachristou confirmed her consistency in good showings with an effort at exactly 14 meters. Athanassia Perra reached 13.94 meters. In the women’s 60-meter dash, Georgia Kokloni was second with 7.48 seconds, beating Greek rival Maria Karastamati, with 7.53 seconds. Romanian Angela Morosanu came first.
