The preliminary starting list shows that 27 Slovak athletes – 6 women and 21 men will start in Samorin on June 17th in the main program of 52nd International Athletic Meeting Pravda – Television – Slovnaft (P – T – S). In addition, there are also two Slovak teams in 4 x 100 m men’s relay competition.
“Last year we worked very enthusiastically to recover the meeting after a long time. The goal was to promote athletics itself through a top level meeting and to allow our best athletes to compete in a high – quality competition”, said the president of the Slovak Athletic Association and the head of the P – T – S meeting organizing committee, Peter Korcok.
Athletic Fans – Vice President of the Organizing Committee, Juraj Baca secretly hopes for a full house – 5000 people at the stadium – fans will have a chance to see almost all top Slovak athletes.
In two disciplines there is a real chance to break Slovak records. On 200m men, Jan Volko (also Jakub Matus is running) with great rivals on a starting list, could beat his own personal best (20.66) from May 13th ran in Prague and on 400m women, Iveta Putalova will try to break the Slovak record (51.98) of Jozefina Cerchlanova, who is still the record holder from July 27th in 1974.
Slovak recorder and 800 m runner, Jozef Repcik will have a good chance to improve his seasonal best running along with Aman and Amos. Another promising Slovak runner, Matus Talan will run with the same tactic and he wants to attack his seasonal best. As a promotion for the European Cross Country Championship in December 2017 will be the 3000 meters run, were Slovak athletes – Peter Dubec and Jaroslav Szabo won`t probably have a chance to win, but their opponents could help them to attack their personal records. Jakub Bottlik (400m hurdles) or Tomas Veszelka (triple jump) are also having very tough starting list, including four athletes over 17meters in triple jump. First season start will have the fifth man from 2017 European Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Matus Bubenik.
In the male hammer throw, Marcel Lomnicky will try to get a good result after couple of not very successful races. Former European Champion, Libor Charfreitag wants to push his season’s best of 71.00m so he can qualify for World Championships in London. Matej Toth, the Olympic winner from Rio on 50 km, is on a starting list of a 3000meter walk.
Improving personal bests (23.46 on 200 m or 2:02.91 on 800 m)- is what are two athletes from Slovakia –Alexandra Bezekova and Alexandra Stukova looking for. In the long jump competition, Jana Veldakova is in a good shape and she feels like to improve her seasonal best of 653cm. Two Slovak athletes are starting in the women hammer throw. Nikola Lomnicka would finally like to throw what she has done on her trainings and the two time silver medalist from European Championships, Martina Hrasnova wants to throw over 68m on her premiere start of this season.