Croatian athlete breaks 37-year-old national indoor record in the 800 m

Croatian athlete Marino Bloudek broke a 37-year-old national indoor record in the 800 metres at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava, Czech Republic, with a time of 1:46.15.

The previous Croatian indoor 800 metre record was held by Predrag Melnjak, who ran 1:46.40 in Turin, Italy, in 1988.

In doing so, Bloudek has met the standard for the European Indoor Championships, which will be held from 6-9 March in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.

With his fifth place finish in Ostrava, Bloudek is currently in eighth place in the European standings.

The winner was Belgian Eliott Crestan with a time of 1:44.69, Italian Catalin Tecuceanu was second (1:45.35), Algerian Slimane Moula was third (1:45.50), and Polish Maciej Wyderk finished just ahead of Bloudek (1:45.99).

Meanwhile, just a few days ago, Jana Koščak set a new Croatian indoor record in the pentathlon at the WA Combined Events Tour Silver competition in Tallinn.

She started with 8.36 in the 60 metre hurdles, which is her best result this season, worth 1,048 points. In her strongest event, the high jump, she cleared a height of 1.91 metres, which equaled her personal best, earning her 1,119 points. She threw the shot put 10.93 metres (591 points), while further improving her best result this season with a long-jump of 6.27 metres, which brought her another 934 points. She finished the last event, the 800 metre, in 2:22.77 (786 points).

The total number of points that Jana won is 4,478, which is a new Croatian senior and junior indoor record in pentathlon, and she finished an excellent 3rd place overall.