Adel Mechaal will fight for his third European medal in 3,000 meters

MADRID, 4 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Spanish athlete Adel Mechaal will seek a new medal in the 3,000-meter event of the European Athletics Indoor Championships, which is being held in Istanbul, while Quique Llopis and Kevin Sánchez have reached the 60-meter hurdles semifinals this Saturday .

Running very comfortably in the second series of 3,000 meters, the Spanish champion went from less to more, reaching the middle of the race near the top; Without wasting much energy, he sealed his place in the final by finishing second in his heat (7:50.69). He will now play his fourth final of four European appearances in a test where he was European champion in 2017 and bronze two years ago.

In the 60 meter hurdles event, Quique Llopis and Kevin Sánchez entered the next round, while Daniel Cisneros was eliminated. Sánchez, with a personal best of 7.68, made his debut in the first series and finished sixth (7.77) with options to enter by times -four passed-, something he finally achieved.

Llopis, second in the European ranking this year, came out in the fourth series, where the Frenchman Pascal Martinot-Lagarde was eliminated against forecast, and took the victory with a time of 7.63. The rookie in a European Championship, Daniel Cisneros from Madrid, ran in the second series and had the misfortune of tripping over the second fence, completely losing the race rhythm and entering eighth in 8.24.

For his part, Jorge Ureña from Alicante signed, in heptathlon, a discreet 6.96 in 60 meters, far from his personal best of 6.79 in Gallur. In length, after a first null jump, the second one went up to 7.25 m, also far from his best flights. He finished the morning at weight with 13.58m. Thus, he is in sixth provisional place with 2,774 points.

In the longitude classification, the Valencian Fátima Diame was dropped from the European final by only three centimeters. Iván Pedroso’s pupil began her competition with a null before going up to 6.48 m in her second jump. The last desperate attempt to try to enter, when she was ninth, fell short (5.72 m).

Lastly, in the women’s series of the 60 meter hurdles, the Catalan Xènia Benach left behind from the start and far from her rivals; she entered the finish line fifth, far from the mark that allowed her to enter by times.