FÍF archive

VU-Spelen: 9 personal bests on day two!

09.07.2011 · Hallur Holm

Machine-translated from Faroese and not yet reviewed. Read the original.

Yesterday it started raining at midday, and it then poured down until dinner time. Today was different. From early morning until our last event the sun beat down from a clear sky. The days are long at Ullevi. As early as half past seven this morning the first group left the athletes’ village.

Tinna Berg Jørgensen, who turned 12 yesterday, was due to run the 80 metres as early as 09:10. A few weeks ago Tinna got well under the A standard in the 80 metres, so we had been looking forward to this race with excitement. A great many girls had entered, so no fewer than 10 heats had to be run before it was clear who would go through to the A and B finals. Tinna was to run in heat 8 in lane 5. It turned out to be a very close heat, where the first four crossed the finish line almost exactly level. Tinna was one of those four, but just behind No. 3. Still, she had run so fast that she went through to the B final. Her time was 11.45, which is a new age-group record and a personal best.

Tinna gives it everything she has to squeeze out every 1/100 of a second

Only the best sixteen of the roughly 80 girls made the A and B finals. In the B final Tinna managed to beat two of them, and on top of that she got a better time than the last two in the A final. So Tinna finished 12th overall. Her time in the B final was 6/100 of a second slower than in the heats but definitely respectable. Since last spring Tinna has now improved by about one and a half seconds over 80 metres!

6th place in the B final secured Tinna 12th place overall out of a good 80 sprinters!!

Next it was Marita K. Petersen, who was running the 80 metres in the girls 13 competition. There too there was a huge number of participants and 13 heats to get through. Marita ran in lane 2 in the sixth heat. Before today Marita’s best time was 12.27 seconds. Today she cut almost half a second off it when she ran 11.83 sec! This was not enough, however, to go through to the final round. Overall the time was good enough for 60th of 101 participants.

Marita is taking part in no fewer than 6 events at VU-Spelen. Here she battles it out over 80 metres.

The third sprinter in action this morning was Trygvi Laksafoss, who ran the 100 metres in the boys 17 category. A few weeks ago Trygvi went under 12 seconds for the first time, so it was exciting to see whether he could do it once more. And he did. He took 11/100 of a second off his time and set a personal best of 11.88 sec.

Trygvi Laksafoss went under 12 seconds once again!

Katarina Høj, who yesterday won bronze in the girls 12 600 metres, today took part in the girls 13 1,500 metres. At the Tårnby Games Katarina ran the distance in 5:24, and she had been entered with 5:20. But after yesterday’s cracking result we wanted to make sure Katarina got to run with the very best, so her entry time was changed at the last minute to 5:08. Katarina settled right at the back from the start. That was sensible, because the pace was undoubtedly high. She then gradually worked her way up through the field. Sometimes she overtook one runner, and sometimes two at once. This went on until she had reached 6th place, because there was now a fair gap to No. 5. In the final stage she pulled further away from those behind her and also closed in a little on those ahead. But there were no more changes in position, so the final result was 6th place in a time of 5:07.59. This is a very good time – so good, in fact, that until a few years ago it was the Faroese women’s record for the distance!

Katarina Høj in a hard race against, among others, three members of the Danish youth national team.

Last night we watched the Diamond League from France. The Danish star jumper Morten Jensen was competing there. He must have made a quick getaway, because already this afternoon he was ready to jump again. This time, though, it was at Ullevi in Gothenburg, and among others he faced Faroese opposition when Daniel Djurhuus Rein stepped up. Daniel had tried right up to the last minute to qualify for the Island Games, but never got the good jump we all know he is capable of. Whether it was the big guns he found himself alongside that brought out the best in Daniel I dare not say, but in any case a huge jump came as early as the first round. 6.44 metres, 24 cm further than the Island Games standard! He fouled his next jump, but in his last attempt he again jumped over 6 metres. Not as far as the first jump this time, but still 6.04 metres.

Daniel Djurhuus Rein – a breakthrough today!

And then our Island Games 5,000 metres bronze medallist, Marnar Djurhuus, stepped onto the track. He was running the boys 17 1,500 metres. Marnar’s goal was to get close to or under 4:10. He went out like a madman. For the first 3-400 metres he was clear of the others, most of whom were a year older than Marnar. And for the whole of the next lap he was still in the lead. But then it started to get tough. He gradually drifted back through the field, and at one point he had fallen back to ninth. But then he gritted his teeth and held on, and over the last 200 metres he got two places back and also recovered a little of the lost time. The final time was 4:12.10, which was good enough for 7th place. Marnar kept reaching for his groin several times during the race, and said afterwards that problems with his groin had cost him a lot today. In any case it is certain that when Marnar is a year older and runs a little more evenly, he will be among the clear favourites to win this race next year.

Marnar led for the first half of the race.

Steingrímur Hallsson popped up like a jack-in-the-box a few weeks ago and threw 35.93 metres in the javelin. That is how he qualified for VU-Spelen at the last minute. Since then, though, he has also achieved the standards in both the 1,000 metres and the triple jump! Today he first had to run the 800 metres. His personal best was 2:21, so he was placed in heat 3 of the three heats. The runners in this third heat all had times from 2:20 upwards, so Steingrímur should not be afraid to take responsibility and get the pace going. And he did take that responsibility. After only 200 metres he was well ahead of No. 2. And throughout the race he extended his lead. At the finish line he was at least 50 metres ahead of No. 2. It also turned out to be a fine personal best for Steingrímur. He ran 2:15.09, which is also 3 seconds inside the A standard. With this time he also beat all the runners in the B final as well as the last runner in the A final. That made Steingrímur No. 10 overall of the good 30 runners!

Already on the first lap Steingrímur was clearly in the lead

Shortly afterwards Steingrímur had to throw the javelin. The hope was that he could take the positive experience with him into the javelin, but it did not seem to work. His first throw turned out to be his longest – 30.27 metres. The other two were under 30 metres. A bit of a shame, as both warm-up throws easily went out to 31-32 metres.

Steingrímur got the javelin past 30 metres again today

At the same time there was a throwing competition for boys 17. Hanus Bergsson and Hallur Simonsen were competing in the shot put. Neither of them threw to their best today either. In the last round, though, Hanus more or less managed to save the day with a 10.23 m throw, while Hallur’s best throw was 9.88 metres. On a good day they both throw close to 11 metres.

Hallur on his second attempt in the shot put today

And then only the 400 metres races were left. First girls 19 with Rebekka Fuglø. Rebekka has made enormous progress at every distance she has run this winter, spring and now this summer. It has been a while since she last raced the 400 metres, but we were excited, because a personal best here would have meant the same as a new Faroese record. But it did not happen for Rebekka today. She tied up quite a lot towards the end and, with a time of 63.36, was about a second off her own Faroese record.

Rebekka just after the start of the 400m

Finally it was the three Bragdið lads Rúni Seloy, Hans Jacobsen and Regin Joensen, who all had hopes of a good result in the 400 metres. Rúni was in heat 3, Hans in the fourth and Regin in the fifth. It looked good for Rúni, who was right up there the whole way. In the last 100 metres he looked for a moment as if he would pull ahead of the others, but then he tied up and was overtaken himself. He held on to third place in the heat and crossed the line in 52.88 sec. Rúni has run 52.32 seconds indoors, but this was enough for an outdoor personal best.

Rúni powers away

Hans has long been working on improving his 400 metres. And it has steadily been moving forward. He has, however, always been a few 1/10 of a second short of the A standard, and today was supposed to be the day. Hans too was right up there until the very end, but then tied up badly at the finish. A little disappointing for Hans that his final time ended up just over 55 sec. With a slightly more cautious start, there is little doubt that Hans will easily slip under 54.5 seconds. Perhaps as soon as next time?

Hans on his way towards the finish line

The last man in action today was Regin. He has grown a lot this winter and has also got a good deal stronger. His times over the very short distances have become markedly better, and it was exciting to see whether he could once again improve his 400 metres time. Like Rúni and Hans, Regin also went out pretty hard. But he did not tie up as much as the other two, and battled his way to the finish with an improvement of almost a whole second!! Regin’s time was 54.25 seconds, which gave him 27th place overall. Rúni finished No. 19 and Hans No. 37 of the nearly 50 runners.

Regin set another personal best today – this time in the 400m

We have another long day tomorrow. Anyone interested in seeing the schedule can look at the article “talentbólkurin til VU-Spelen” (the talent group for VU-Spelen).

Marita, running in lane 2, set a personal best, which is now 11.83 sec.