Slovak athlete Viktória Forsterová won the gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles at the 31st FISU World University Games in the Chinese city of Chengdu. In the final, she triumphed in a national record of 12.72 ahead of the Chinese Jen-ni Wu. Bronze goes to Jyothi Yarraji from India. Ján Volko took fourth place in the 200 meter final, 11 hundredths behind the podium.
It is the second medal for the 21-year-old athlete at the ongoing event, on Wednesday she won silver in the 100m freestyle. This is Slovakia’s eleventh athletics Universiade medal (2–7–2 record). Forsterová improved her previous Slovak maximum from June’s Zlata Tretra in Ostrava by one tenth.
It is the second medal for the 21-year-old athlete at the ongoing event, on Wednesday she won silver in the 100m freestyle. “It’s unbelievable what I’m experiencing now. I’m extremely happy about the gold and I thank everyone. It really means a lot to me. It was a priority race for me at this Universiade and I went into it thinking that I’ll leave everything there and either it will work out or not. I’m happy,” Forster said after winning the gold.
“It was a fantastic final in which Viktória did not hesitate even for a moment. Before the final, she calmed me down, not me. She comforted me not to be afraid. I was surprised that in the sixth run at the Universiade, she still had so much strength left to achieve such a high-quality performance. She was really tired. We are both incredibly happy that she met the limit for the Paris Olympics, which she really wanted to run.” coach Katarína Adlerová, who trains Forster in the ŠK ŠOG Nitra club and is also a member of VŠC Dukla Banská Bystrica, told the atletika.sk portal.
Volko ran a time of 20.66 s in the 200 m final, which was enough for him to place fourth. South African Tsebo Matsoso triumphed with a performance of 20.36. At the Universiade, Volko made it to the final on this track for the third time – in 2017 in Taipei he won bronze (20.99) and in 2019 in Naples he finished fifth (20.66).
“I am satisfied with the semi-final run, but not with the final. After the semi-final I believed that I would be able to meet the limit of 20.45 for next year’s European Championships. I felt very good. Unfortunately, in the final I ran the first 100 slowly and came by important hundredths. I don’t evaluate fourth place negatively. Today in the final I mainly fought for the best possible time. It didn’t quite work out, but I thank all the people in the stadium and in Slovakia who cheered me on.” Volko evaluated his performance.
Slovakia will be represented in Chengdu in the final matches over the weekend as well. On Saturday already at 1:00 a.m. CET, the 20 km walkers Hana Burzalová, Ema Hačundová, Alžbeta Ragasová will start, 20 minutes later Dominik Černý will take part in the same men’s race.
Jakub Kubínec will throw in the javelin final on Sunday at 12:00 CET. Jozef Hanušovský’s protégé took 3rd place in Friday’s qualification with a performance of 74.08 m, reported atletika.sk.
2023-08-04 15:10:34
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