European Athletics is pleased to announce that Czech Republic’s Barbora Spotakova and Gerd Kanter of Estonia have been voted by the fans and media as European Athletes of the Month for September.

Kanter, the Olympic, world champion and three-times European silver medallist in the discus, won four out of his five competitions during the month, including at the IAAF Continental Cup where he threw 64.46m despite unhelpful conditions; he also achieved a season’s best of 66.28m on home soil in Parnu on 24 September.

Ukraine’s Bogdan Bondarenko was right behind in second place. The reigning world and European high jump champion had big victories at the world challenge meeting in Rieti and then at the IAAF Continental Cup, as well as jumping 2.40m at the Diamond League final in Brussels.

Third in the vote was Kariem Hussein of Switzerland. The European 400m champion ran a superb race at the IAAF Continental Cup, finishing second in his last outing of the year but setting a personal best and 2014 European-leading time of 48.47.

On the women’s side, the award went to Spotakova who won the Diamond League final in Brussels with a 2014 world-leading javelin throw of 67.99m to clinch the Diamond Race and then went on to win convincingly at the IAAF Continental Cup by almost two metres with 65.52m. It has been another great year for the Czech star as she won the major title that was still missing to her collection with gold from Zurich in August.

In second place was Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk, fresh from her recent world record hammer throw, the 2014 European champion got her seventh successive victory of the summer at the IAAF Continental Cup, dominating the contest and winning by almost three metres with a distance of 75.21m.

In third was Eloyse Lesueur of France, the European long jump champion held her nerve after three fouls at the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakech and pulled herself together to take maximum points with a last-gasp effort of 6.66m in the final round.

News source: european-athletics.org