Tuka runs his best 800m time of the season in Madrid

(Patria) - The best Bosnian-Herzegovinian athlete Amel Tuka competed last night in the B race of the 800 meters at the World Athletics Continental Silver Tour in Madrid, Spain, where at the Valdebebas stadium he achieved his best time of the season.

Tuka ran the distance in 1:45.91 and finished fifth in his race among seven competitors. The top three finishers: Mariano Garcia (Spain) 1:45.26, Alex Botterill (Great Britain) 1:45.27, and Saul Ordonez Gavela (Spain) 1:45.39, as well as the sixth-placed Spaniard Ronaldo Olivo Mersedes (1:46.36), also achieved their best results of the season.

Tuka's previous season's best was set last month at a meeting in Asti, Italy, when he ran 1:46.64.

- Madrid has always been special to me. And this time too!!! Finally, the best result of the season 1:45.91 SB!!! The real results are yet to come! I have a lot to share with you about everything I've been through, but we'll talk about that next time. Now, focus, always looking forward. Let's be better tomorrow than we are today. Thank you for your unconditional support! I will repay you with the best possible results - Tuka wrote a message to his fans on Facebook.

In the main, A race of the 800 meters, which concluded the Madrid meeting, 11 middle-distance runners competed last night, four of whom achieved their best times of the season, while two also set personal bests.

The winner, Eliot Crestan (Belgium), ran the distance in his best time of the season - 1:44.28, as did the second-placed Adrian Ben Montenegro with 1:44.41, while the third-placed Edmund Du Plesis (South Africa) set a new personal best - 1:44.49.

Irishman Mark English also set a personal best with a time of 1:44.53. The best time of the season was also achieved by the sixth-placed Moad Zahafi (Mauritius) 1:44.92 and the seventh-placed Alvaro De Arriba (Spain) 1:45.24.

Last year at this meeting, Tuka ran only 1:47.83, while in 2015 and 2016 he triumphed in the Spanish capital. Tuka did not compete at this year's European Championships in Rome, held from June 7-12, where Mesud Pezer in shot put and Abedin Mujezinović in the 800 meters race competed for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Tuka and Mujezinović will be competing this summer to achieve the qualifying standard, which for their disciplines is 1:44.70. Pezer has not officially met the standard yet either, as he is chasing a distance of 21.50 meters, but this season his longest throw was 21.42 meters, achieved in February in Belgrade.

This is also the distance of his new personal and national indoor record for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which he improved after almost six years.

The previous BiH indoor record, 21.15 meters, was set in March 2018 at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, where he finished an excellent fifth. Pezer's outdoor record is 21.48 meters, from a meeting in Sweden in August 2019.

Pezer was the only BiH representative at this year's 19th World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, for which the standard was as high as 21.70 meters, but he received an opportunity to compete based on his high ranking in the world at that moment.

On Wednesday, at the 15th international meeting in Zenica, Pezer won with a throw of 21.04 meters, which is also his first outdoor throw over 21 meters this season. Mujezinović and Tuka did not compete in Zenica.

Tuka's personal and BiH record in the 800 meters, set in 2015, is a phenomenal 1:42.51, with which he won the Diamond League race in Monaco. In the same year, he also won a bronze medal at the World Championships in Beijing (China), and in 2019, a silver medal at the World Championships in Doha (Qatar), which is the greatest success in BiH athletics.