The Blues are shining! Impressively, Frenchwoman Cyréna Samba-Mayela was crowned European champion in the 100m hurdles on Saturday in Rome by signing the best world performance of the year and once again shattering her own French record in 12″31 (wind: +0.8 m /s). Less than fifty days before the Paris Olympic Games, Samba-Mayela asserts herself as a contender for the Olympic podium in the distance. She brings the French team its second medal of the European competition, a few minutes later. the silver obtained by Auriana Lazraq-Khlass in the heptathlon.
In a high-risk discipline, Samba-Mayela won with an impression of great fluidity: she beat the Swiss Ditaji Kambundji (12″40) and the Polish Pia Skrzyszowska (12″42). The French hurdler offers herself her first international medal in the 100m hurdles, having already been crowned world indoor champion in the 60m hurdles in 2022 and world silver medalist in the same distance in March.
Samba-Mayela, who made the choice at the start of the 2023 school year to fly to Orlando, Florida, to work with Irishman John Coghlan as coach and reigning Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn as training partner, confirms that it has changed dimensions. In just one evening and two races on the blue track of the Olympic stadium in Rome, she took 21 hundredths off her French record. From 12″52, she lowered it to 12″43 in the semi-finals, then to 12″31 in the final. Samba-Mayela had seized the old French record in April, in 12″55, and the had already improved since then.
Lazraq-Khlass had opened the counter
Auriana Lazraq-Khlass created a surprise by improving or equaling six of her personal bests in the seven events contested between Friday and Saturday. With 6,635 points, she achieved the Olympic minimums and is only ahead of the untouchable Belgian Nafissatou Thiam (6,848 points), in search of a third Olympic title in less than 50 days in Paris.
The 25-year-old Messina, eyes painted in the shape of blue-white-red flames, completed a record heptathlon from start to finish. Friday for her first day, she set four personal bests in four events, first in the 100 meter hurdles (13″35), then by equaling her record at height (1.77 m) before exploding from more than a meter that of the weight (15.27 m) and to conclude the day with a fourth record over 200 meters (23″56).
She continued her crazy momentum on Saturday, coming very close to her length record (6.35 m) before putting more than four meters behind her old mark in the javelin (48.23 meters) and concluding with a 800 m completed in 2’12″07. Insufficient to dethrone the Belgian Nafissatou Thiam who was crowned, she who had not completed a heptathlon for almost two years. The Belgian Noor Vidts completes the podium with 6596 points.
Cyrena Samba-Mayela European champion in the 100m hurdles, in Rome, June 8, 2024
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