Julian Gregersen Danish champion at 800 m

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

The eight Faroese athletes who competed for the Danish youth championship titles at the weekend performed very well against their Danish peers. In most events the Faroese participants were well in the fight for medals, and on two occasions they managed to bring the medal home from Billund. Most of our athletes competed on both Saturday and Sunday.

The best result came from Julian Gregersen who, in a very exciting final sprint, finished as Danish champion at 800 m for boys 18-19. It had otherwise looked as though the local hero from Skive was going to win. He was clearly in front with only a short way left to the finish. The hall announcer got the whole hall clapping and cheering on the local gold winner, who, however, abruptly paid the price for too fast a start. And Julian began to close in. Very quickly. He pushed on, and just before the finish line he went past the Skive runner and became Danish champion for the first time. His time was 1:59.48 min, about one second off his best time.

Hearty congratulations, Julian!

Julian (171) went past just a few metres before the finish line

The next day the 1,500 m was on the programme. According to the rankings, Julian’s best bet was to go for the bronze medal. Julian’s pace in this race was slightly slower than in Iceland two weeks ago. Unfortunately, one runner proved to be very quick in the sprint, and Julian had to settle for fourth place, half a second from bronze and four seconds from the Faroese record he set in Iceland. His time was 4:09.84 min.

The other medal was won by the powerful Óluva Allansdóttir Joensen in the shot put for girls 14-15. She did not throw up to her best in the three preliminary rounds, but still comfortably enough to reach the final. There she immediately produced her best throw. It measured 11.80 metres, a personal best and an age-group record. This was just 21 centimetres from becoming Danish champion. With her long throw, Óluva nevertheless won silver at the Danish Championships!

Óluva (176) and the gold winner Sara Kjær Andersen. Both represent Vejle IF

In the oldest group, boys 20-22, Tummas Napoleon Arge, who now represents Hvidovre, competed. Tummas Napoleon just squeezed into the 60 metres final by running 7.31 seconds, 1/100 of a second from his best time. They had an hour to recharge before the final, in which there was one withdrawal. In the final, Tummas Napoleon managed to take 2/100 sec off and thereby set a new personal best of 7.29 seconds, which is just 6/100 of a second from Rói Holgarsson’s Faroese record. Tummas Napoleon finished seventh. He had also planned to run the 200 metres, but a lingering injury meant it was best to wait until another time.

A bitter 4th place and a bitter 5th place were the reward for the hard-fighting Maria Biskopstø. In two very close races over 800 and 1,500 metres, where Maria was well in the fight for medals, she nevertheless came away with nothing once the battle was over. She was, however, very, very close. In the 800 metres she finished fourth in 2:21.64 min, less than two seconds behind the gold winner. In the 1,500 she was fifth in 4:54.93, just one second from bronze. In both cases she was close to her best times. Maria also did the high jump and finished eighth with 1.38 m

Oddvør Josepsen took part in three events. On Saturday the 400 metres came first. Here she ran two seconds slower than the Faroese record she set at Stórmót. And so she ended up back in eighth place with 62.79 sec. Things went better in the 800 metres, where she finished sixth. Although she did not run up to her very best, she ran much faster than in Reykjavík: 2:21.93 min. On Sunday it was the 1,500 metres, which, however, she has not focused on so much recently. She finished seventh in this race with 5:11.67 min.

Birita Ryan is now closing in on 10 metres in the triple jump in big strides. Despite having no facilities to train in at all, she is now the third-best Faroese woman ever with her 9.84 metres, which she jumped in the first round of the triple jump competition. In addition, she jumped 9.83 twice, and in total five of her six jumps were longer than she had ever jumped before! In the competition for girls 14-15 she was contending for the places from third to fifth, and finished in fifth place. Birita also took part in the 60 metres, where she almost managed to live up to the great time she achieved in Iceland. This time she finished fourth in her heat and 13th overall out of the 24 sprinters. Her result was 8.52 seconds.

Bragdið’s only representative was Andrea Kirstina Møller, who also took part in the triple jump competition. Andrea did not manage to jump as far as in Iceland, and therefore fell just short of the final. Her longest jump was 9.22 metres, which was good enough for ninth place.

Hans Sivertsen did not get the 800 metres to work in Iceland, but in Skive it went much better. He cut some three seconds off in two weeks, so he is on his way into form. In the 400 metres a few hours earlier, he almost managed to live up to his good 400 metres in Iceland. His time in the 800 metres was 2:16.75 min and in the 400 metres 58.81 seconds.

After a few busy weeks of indoor competitions abroad, training will now return to focusing on preparing for the summer. The Island Games and VU-Spelen are approaching fast, and soon there will be just two months until the first round of the TF Grand Prix at Tórsbreyt.