On Friday, the Lithuanian Athletics Championships began at the renovated Palanga Stadium, where the country’s most capable athletes compete. On the first day of the competition, the Lithuanian 100 m running champion Ema Rupšytė performed wonderfully, covering the distance in 11.37 seconds. The sprinter, who won the first gold medal in this event, recorded the third best result in the history of Lithuania and repeated the record of the Lithuanian championships.
In addition, the athlete improved the Lithuanian 19-year-old record, which belonged to Agne Eggerth (11.42 seconds). It is even more impressive that E. Rupšytė improved her personal record by as much as 0.28 seconds. (previous – 11.65 seconds).
“I didn’t expect such a result at all. I want to thank coach Martas Skrabulis very much. Good weather conditions and a new stadium contributed to the result. I’m very happy with the performance, it’s just amazing. I hope that this will happen more often,” E. Rupšytė shared her emotions.
After the triumph, the athlete paid tribute to her competitors and revealed that she did not feel great before the start: “We have such friendly competition. It’s a lot of fun to run with such strong sprinters. Before the start I felt weak, just such a moment came, but the result shows that I ran well. This is very motivating to strive for even higher results and participation in the highest level competitions.”
The men’s 100 m race was won by Kristupas Seikauskas (10.77 seconds). The sprinter won the Lithuanian Championship gold in this event for the third time in his career, and since June of this year he also holds the Lithuanian 4×100 m relay record (39.77 seconds), which the athlete achieved together with Kostas Skrabulis, Adas Dambrauskas and Gediminas Truskauskas.
“I didn’t think much about the title, it was more important for me to improve my personal result. Of course, winning the competition was one of the goals set. We should be happy that we managed to win and become champion. It is a pity that the main competitor Ado Dambrauskas was absent, and Martynas Kolupaila did not run either. However, the fight was good, Kostas Skrabulis was great, because he ran the best result of the season,” said K. Seikauskas.
This year, the athlete who improved his personal record (10.59 seconds) said that he evaluates the summer season quite well, and it is still too early to evaluate the new surface at the Palanga Stadium: “It feels that the surface is good, but it is more difficult to say more, because this is the first competition. Today, the weather conditions were also good, which contributed to the results. The season was quite good, I managed to participate in the European Team Championship and become the Lithuanian champion. I managed to improve my personal record in the 100 m race. I rate the season 7 out of 10.”
Edis Matusevičius, who is stamping the titles of champion one after another, justified the status of the favorite this time as well. The javelin thrower flew the tool 81.09 m (73.92-x-77.10-77.95-75.02-81.09) in the best test. However, after the race, the Olympian did not hide the fact that this competition was not the most successful, and the fight against injuries is constantly ongoing: “My body was not tied, it was difficult. Not my day. Only for the last throw I concentrated, everything went well and that spear flew away. The season is not bad, of course, those injuries don’t go away, but I fight them and continue to participate.”
The World Cup will take place in Tokyo (Japan) on September 13-21, and E. Matusevičius will be one of the members of the Lithuanian national team. According to the javelin thrower, the date of the championship is grateful to him, and the main goal is to be better every day: “It’s good that the championship is so late. I’ll still have time to lick the wounds. It’s to my advantage. I’m a competitor to myself, I’m trying to fight myself and be better than I was before.”
For the 11th time, Lithuanian record holder Liveta Jasiūnaitė became the national champion. The javelin thrower flew the tool 58.77 m in the best test (x-58.63-58.27-x-58.77-57.80). “It is very nice to return to Palanga. Since it is a new coating, I can appreciate that it is very fun and good. In the future, good results can be seen here. Today I didn’t set very high expectations for myself, I just participated and won,” L. Jasiūnaitė said about the performance and the renovated stadium.
The Olympian, who is already preparing for the fifth World Championship, said that now all the focus is on training, so there may be no competition before the championship: “Now the work for the World Championship has begun, so all thoughts are focused on it. I have put together my competition calendar quite well, and now there will be a lot of time to prepare for the championship. I think everything will be good.”
In the 400 m distance, Tomas Keršulis (46.94 seconds) and Modesta Justė Morauskaitė (53.15 seconds) became the Lithuanian champions, in the 1500 m race Vaida Žūsinaitė-Nekriošienė (4 min. 27.86 sec.) and Simas Bertašius (3 min. 46.23 sec.) were the champions, and in the 10000 m distance Mindaugas Balčiauskis (30 min. 45.03 sec.) was unbeatable.
Urtė Baikštytė (1.80 m) and Juozas Baikštys (2.19 m) triumphed in the high jump competition, Gustas Griška (15.11 m) celebrated the victory in the triple jump sector, and Kamilė Šauklytė (43.36 m) and Tomas Vasiliauskas (67.20 m) won the gold medals in the hammer throw sector.
lengvoji.lt
Photo by Alfredas Pliadis
