Thiam voted European athlete of the month

Belgian heptathlon athlete takes top honour

NAFISSATOU THIAM and Renaud Lavillenie have been voted European Athletes of the Month for March 2020.

Action across the last two weekends of the month were effectively wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic but Thiam and Lavillenie both delivered notable performances on the second day of the French Indoor Championships in Lievin at the start of March.

Competing as a guest, heptathlon specialist Thiam soared out to a Belgian indoor record of 6.79m in the long jump – a mark surpassed only by world medallists Malaika Mihambo (7.07m), Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk (6.96m) and Ese Brume (6.82m) this winter – while Lavillenie cleared 5.80m in the pole vault to record his 150th competition at 5.80m or higher in his career.

Lavillenie tallied 3569 votes across social media to finish comfortably ahead of Spain’s European indoor heptathlon champion Jorge Urena (2260) and Belgian marathon record-holder Bashir Abdi (2217) in the voting while Thiam led the women’s voting with 3947 votes from Poland’s Justyna Swiety-Ersetic (2928) and Great Britain’s Lily Partridge (1809).

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