Only a week remains until the 56th year of the legendary athletic meeting P-T-S, which will take place on Wednesday, June 2, in the sports complex x-bionic® sphere in Šamorín from 16:00. Spectators who enter areal in a limited number and in compliance with the applicable anti-pandemic measures have something to look forward to in the first event. In the hammering sector, they will see two-time European vice-champion and bronze medalist from the 2009 World Championships Martina Hrašnová in a duel with a top opponent, whose name will be announced by the organizers at a Thursday (May 27) press conference in Bratislava.
Simultaneously with the women’s hammer, in which Veronika Kaňuchová will also present herself, at the athletic stadium in x-bionic® sphere, fights will start in 6 men’s (100, 800, 1500, 110 juniors, long jump, shot put) and 4 women’s events (100, 1500, heigh jump, shot put) under the national program. Already at its end at 17:30, Marcel Lomnický’s duel in a men’s hammer throw with quality foreign rivals will begin.
The main program will start after the opening ceremony at 17.50. The Slovak Athletic Association, which is the organizer of the 56th year of PTS, has listed 16 disciplines, 8 men’s (100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 400 m hurdles, heigh jump, hammer throw, javelin throw, 3000 m race walking) and women (100 m , 400 m, 800 m, 100 m hurdles, 400 m hurdles, long jump / memorial of Eva Šuranová, hammer throw, 3000 m race walking). The Šamorín competitions, which will be broadcasted live on RTVS from 18:00, will culminate at 19:45 with 200 m race with the 2019 European Indoor Champion at 60 m Ján Volko. The trustees of coaches Naďa Bendová and Róbert Kresťanko, as well as at the Golden Spike in Ostrava, will complete a double, as at 18.25 he will also run 100 m. In the shortest sprint, one of his opponents will be the experienced American Mike Rodgers, last year’s winner of the 100 m run on the P-T-S and the 4 x 100 m relay world champion from Doha 2019.
“There is a great interest in the meeting among athletes, as it has the silver status of the World Athletics Continental Tour event, which allows it to earn interesting bonus points in the Olympic qualifying rankings,” said P-T-S director Vladimír Gubrický. “We are still fine-tuning the starting list these days, we will inform about other leading competitors at a press conference on Thursday.”
From the names of other world stars who will come to Šamorín, he revealed only one thing: in the high jump, Slovaks Matúš Bubeník and Lukáš Beer will jump with the world and European indoor champion Gianmarco Tamberi from Italy, who won the Banská Bystrica latka for the second time in his career in February.
Silver status of P-T-S in practice means that athletes in the first eight places can get bonuses from 100 points for 1st to 40 points for 8th place (100 – 80 – 70 – 60 – 55 – 50 – 45 – 40).
P-T-S will be an ideal chance for Slovaks to get points for the Olympic qualification, which ends on June 29, 2021. All our top athletes should start, the already mentioned hammer throwers Hrašnová, Lomnický, sprinter Volko, and since the program of the event is designed especially for the needs of the Slovak top , also race walker Matej Tóth or hurdles runners Emma Zapletalová and Stanislava Škvarková. For the Olympic winner in the 50 km walk from Rio de Janeiro Tóth, the 3000 m race at the P-T-S meeting will be the last competition before the gold defense at the Tokyo / Sapper Olympics.
Last year’s “covid” jubilee 55th year of P-T-S, which also had a silver status, finished in 18th place in the evaluation of the quality of all classic one-day events in the world with a gain of 79,815 points out of 415 evaluated events. In 2019, the meeting was 51st out of 1250 races.