Belgrade: Cypriot champions Filippa Fotopoulou and Milan Trajkovic are bringing home a gold medal each from the 30th Balkan Indoor Championships, organised in Belgrade. Fotopoulou delivered her best performance of the season on Saturday afternoon, winning the gold medal in the long jump at the Balkan Indoor Championships.
According to Cyprus News Agency, the athlete coached by Luis Felipe M©liz was very consistent, with four jumps over 6.42m, with her best effort coming in the first round at 6.49m, which led her to the top of the Balkan podium for the first time. Fotopoulou is among the most successful Cypriot athletes in Balkan Championships, both outdoor and indoor. Outdoors she has won four silver and two bronze medals, while indoors she had previously won two silver medals.
For that reason, Saturday was particularly significant for the Cypriot champion, not only because of her strong performance, which ranks as the fifth best of her indoor career (she holds the Cypriot indoor national record with 6.53m), but also because she captured the long-awaited first gold medal of her career at the Balkan Championships.
Milan Trajkovic won his third gold medal at a Balkan Indoor Championships on Saturday. According to an announcement by KOEAS, the 2019 European indoor champion finished first in the 60m hurdles final with a time of 7.71 seconds. Trajkovic had also won gold at the 2015 championships in Istanbul, as well as in 2017, again in Belgrade.
With the completion of Cyprus' participation at the championships in Belgrade, Cyprus also celebrated two new national records, for Petros Michaelides, who finished fourth in the men's indoor shot put with 19.49m, and Antonis Katsantonis, who came fifth in the men's U20 60m with 6.68m.