site.btaRadina Velichkova Is Balkan Long Jump Champion

Radina Velichkova became the champion in the long jump and the Bulgarian athletes won a total of five medals at the Balkan Athletics Championships for juniors up to 18 years, which took place on Saturday in Sivas, Turkiye.

Velichkova won convincingly with a jump of 6.29 m, and took the second place in the 100 metres with 11.52 seconds. The 15-year-old athlete Plovdiv was only one-hundredth of a second behind Vita Penezic (Croatia). The Bulgarian's time would have been a new national record, but the wind was stronger than allowed for an official result. The record for girls under 18 remains for now 11.5 s of Vyara Georgieva from 1994.

Iren Saraboyukova took second place in high jump with a score of 1.77m, while only Maryna Kovtunova (Ukraine) was better than her with 1.80 m. Along with the high jump, the Bulgarian also competed in the long jump where she registered 6.03 metres for the bronze. Her result would have been a personal best had it not again been for the 2.7 m/s headwind.

Petya Bozukova also took bronze for Bulgaria with a score of 12.31 m in the triple jump.

Dimo Andreev on hammer (5 kg) with 68.68 m and Mihaela Ivanova on triple jump with 12.16 m were also excellent and took the fourth places in their disciplines.

Decathlon champion and national indoor heptathlon record holder for this age Momchil Poptolev won the first round of the 400 m with a personal best of 49.73 seconds and placed sixth overall. He remained 73 hundredths away from the bronze medal.