Track and Field:
Battle Against the Heat

A little after 12.00 hrs about 300 official EuroGames participants and around 150 recreational runners from many different European countries started to compete against themselves, each other and especially the long distance runners also against the warm wheather.

Luckily the temperature stopped rising at some point and there was some refreshing wind, so the organisation didn't have to cancel the half marathon, although for some athletes it was too hard to complete their race over 21 kilometers.

The beautifull sunny wheather and the good organisation, but above all the relaxed and joyfull athmosphere lead to fast times on both track and road races, high and long jumps and far throws and many happy athletes.

At the 100m men Philo Jones (the Netherlands) just beat Jason Rocke (the Netherlands) in the winning time of 11.39. Rocke, however, won gold at three other disciplines (long jump, high jump and 400m).
Another close and fast competition was run at the 5 km, where Soren Spunk Malmberg from Denmark won in 18.21.2, just before Dusan Hosek from the Czech Rep (18.24.7O).
The best results by the men were two gold medals by Martje Hoekmeier (the Netherlands) at 100m and 400m, a winning high jump (1.60) by Dutch pole vault record holder Monique de Wilt and a very fast time at the half marathon women was run by former world champion duathlon Irma Heeren (W35) from the Netherlands in 1.26.23.

The day ended with a very spectacular fun relay, in which six very smartly dressed up teams competed with 4 runners over 400m, 300m, 200 and 100. There were teams dressed up like Chinese, dwarfs, woodcutters and one team without any clothes, who just held their hand for protection... When they had all finished a short and spontaneous dressed up party started, before everyone went home or went on to party elsewhere in Utrecht.