Schaan/Lindaplatz - 8th Sep 2016
The final 2016 tour stop of the successful In-City Athletics meeting, the Golden Fly Series was hosted in Schaan in the Principality of Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is the world’s sixth smallest country and boasts just 40,000 inhabitants. The "FlySwat" - the world’s largest mobile certified athletics facility, built especially for the purpose – was celebrating its 10th Tour Stop. Recent venues have included Rio de Janeiro, Munich and Innsbruck while also attracting several million TV viewers.
The competitions modern and compact competition format is attractive for media due to the relatively short duration of the competition. In fact the TV distribution counts around 140 countries and is also streamed live for fans with internet access.
Golden Fly Series was honoured to welcome Pole Vault legend and IAAF Vice-President Sergey Bubka from the Ukraine as special guest at the event and eagerly sat on the side-lines to watch the pole vault from close up.
From a sports perspective, the presence of recently crowned Olympic Champion Thiago Braz da Silva of Brazil was certainly a crowd puller, but so were the 14 other Olympians recently returned from Rio as well as World and European Champions in their disciplines. The victory in the men’s pole vault was finally clinched by Jan Kudlicka who jumped 5.70. Da Silva did not pass that height on his first try so lost on countback. Third place went to Greek World Indoor Champion Kostas Filippidis with a respectable 5.60.
The Women’s Pole Vault was won by Finland’s Minna Nikkanen with 4.50 ahead of Iryna Yakaltsevich (BLR) with 4.40 and Maryna Kylypko (UKR) with 4.20.
The long jump men was won by Czech Radek Juska with a jump of 8.00 while second place went to Uruguayan Emiliano Lassa with 7.58 ahead of Daniel Gardiner (GBR) who jumped 7.54.
The women’s event was won by British Jazmin Sawyers with a jump of 6.65 ahead of Maryna Bekh, (UKR) with 6.39 and Alina Rotaru (ROM) who managed 6.30.
The Principality of Liechtenstein has already scheduled the return of Golden Fly Series in 2018 and 2020 and in the meantime, the team is preparing the 2017 Tour Stops which will include once again the Olympic City of Rio de Janeiro next 12 February. The full calendar will be announced later this year.
