Over the past weekend the U23 National Indoor Championships were held in Pombal (POR) in the indoor facility of the Expocentro.
The walking events took place in the afternoon session on Saturday 27 February as follows:
- at 17:15: 5.000m indoor walk category U23 men
- at 18:00: 3.000m indoor walk category U23 women
5.000m indoor walk U23 men
Easy victory for Ruben Santos (POR) in 21:57.51 which for him represents the new personal best (previous of 22:02.53 always obtained in Pombal, POR on 10.2.2018).
Second place to Pedro Dias (POR) in 23:30.74 (burdened by a penalty of 30 seconds for irregular walking)
Third place to Filipe Loureiro (POR) in 24:14.42
5.000m indoor walk U23 women
The presence of seven athletes at the start and the interesting battle between the three contenders for the medal (Joana Pontes, Maria Bernardo and the U20 Ines Mendes) made the women's race by far the most interesting.
In the end the victory smiled on Maria Bernardo in 13:35.05.
Two weeks ago the athlete trained by Paulo Murta had obtained the bronze medal at the Absolute Indoor Championships at the Altice Forum in Braga in 13:49.14 when she had just touched the personal best of 13:42.18 always obtained in Braga on 7.3.2020 . On Saturday she finally succeeded in her goal with a masterful race.
Second place to Joana Pontes (POR) in 13:45.37, just under 8 seconds from her personal best of her dating back to last year's edition.
Third place to Ines Mendez (POR) in 13:54.69 also a new personal best (previous of 14:28.45 always obtained in Pombal, POR on 15.2.2020).
(Photos by Facebook Paulo Murta - POR)