The shot putter Mesud Pezer from Bosnia and Herzegovina won a place in the finals of the 26th European outdoor championship, which started today in Rome (Italy) and will last until June 12.
In tonight’s qualification for the final, in which 29 throwers took part and in which the norm for direct placement in the final was 20.70 meters, Pezer competed in group B and achieved a length of 19.79 meters, which was enough for him to take 11th place and placement in the finals.
The norm for the final tonight was met only by the Italian Leonardo Fabri, who already threw 21.10 m in the first series, while the remaining 11 finalists entered by ranking.
The second-placed Norwegian Marcus Thomasen and the third-placed Croatian Filip Mihaljević threw 20.69 m, the fourth-placed Swede Victor Petersson 20.57, then the Czech Tomaš Stanek 20.53, the British Scott Lincoln 20.31, the Luxembourgish Bob Bertemes 20.23 m, the Portuguese Francisco Belo 20.18, the Romanian Andrei Rares Toader 20.13, the Polish Michal Haratyk 19.79, Mesud Pezer 19.79 and Italian Zane Weie 19.71 m.
The Serbian Asmir Kolašinac was 18th, with a length of 19.19 meters, while his compatriot Armin Sinancevic failed all three times and was left without a place. The final is on the program already tomorrow at 21:00.
Pezer’s personal and BIH outdoor record is 21.48 m, and this season’s best result and a new personal and BH record national indoor record 21.42 m.
Middle-distance runner Abedin Mujezinović, who today won 7th place in the third qualifying race at 800 meters, with a time of 1:49.20, finished second to last in his discipline, 31st in the qualifications. Only the Hungarian Daniel Huller was weaker than him, who finished last with 1:49.59 in the same race with Mujezinović.
Mujezinović’s personal record, which he ran in the summer of last year, is 1:45.32, while in the middle of last month he achieved this season’s best time of 1:45.86, but today he was nowhere near those times, so he will not compete in the semifinals tomorrow. The fastest in the qualifiers was the Frenchman Paul Anselmini, who set a new personal record with 1:44.73. The semi-finals are scheduled for tomorrow at 7:50 p.m., and the final on Sunday at 10:27 p.m., Fena news agency writes.