XI European Athletics Festival , Bydgoszcz, June 3

The countdown is already underway and World and European champion Phillips Idowu will be eyeing to take off to a substantial new world-leading marker when he steps on the triple jump runway in Bydgoszcz, Polland, later today.

With the competition looking more of a formality, the Londoner could solely focus on extending his winning season opener of 17.59m set in Rome, which he was rather just content with, and I feel something around the 17.70s should well be on the cards tonight.

Unlike last year when he was forced to play a waiting game, Idowu is out to gain a tight grip on procedures from early on and establish his authority on the triple jump scene through the way.

Grenada's Randy Lewis and Aleksey Fyodorov (RUS, 17.01 SB) are the most notable from the opposition while an interesting presence will be Karol Hoffman, the son of 1983 World triple jump champion.

Marilyn Okoro will be making her first outing over 800m this season after a string of low-key warm-ups over 400 and 1500m possibly looking for something solid around 2 mins, with a sneaky hope of edging even faster, and she's got a good chance of getting off to a winning start as well. Olha Zavhorodnya (RUS) and home favourite Renata Plis should be her main opponents in a field that involves a second British girl in Claire Gibson.

The Brits occupy almost half the lanes in the men's 400m hurdles where European silver medallist Rhys Williams will be seeking to take his racing up a gear after a shaky setout to his European tour, with a SB of 49.94 secs so far, and he must have identified this race as the place where he could start hauling up the world ranks again.

Established performer Danny McFarlane (JAM) should be his main opponent in the race while David Hughes is about to get his season underway in earnest following a 'green light' of 51.46 secs test run in the semis of the CAU in Bedford.

Rick Yates comes in on that as well and both will be looking to move inside 50 secs for the first time this term.

European finalist Eilidh Child, now under Malcolm Arnold, has got a good race in her hands against Jamaica's Nickiesha Wilson and American Nicole Leach to put to good use towards some solid early mark in the women's equivalent and evergreen Joice Maduaka will be involved in the sprints against Stephanie Durst, who was disqualified in Ostrava on Tuesday.

Other Brits on show will be Beijing finalist Sarah Claxton after a well-improved display in the 100m hurdles and former European U20 champion Chris Baillie in the men's sprint hurdles.

Start-lists:
http://forsport.info/

Website & Results:
http://www.eaf.bydgoszcz.pl/

I'm most looking forward to Maz in the 800m - she seemed to be really making her way back this indoors, so I'm hoping for something close to 2/2.01 tonight

Wooopppssss!! Maz totally slipped my mind and she didn't appear on the 800m start-lists when I first looked for good measure. I'm looking forward to that too!

Strange that while both Brit girls appear in the HTML format of the start-lists, they don't show in the PDF file!

I happened to be missing during the best part of the meeting in Poland so let's now recapture the action:

Phillips Idowu totally dominated the men's triple jump with aplomb as he reached a windy (3.3m/sec) second-round 17.52m, backed up by a legal fourth-round 17.32m (1.7m/sec), to spare well over half a metre on the opposition.

That makes, as mentioned already in another thread, two wins in two outdoor outings and four out of four overall this season for the big man, who was robbed of a huge legal third round jump as an official raked it before it was measured. Next stop is the Big Apple next weekend!

Marilyn Okoro made a familiar moderate outdoor opener of 2:02.29 for fifth in a women's 800m that slowed down a lot round the second lap after a 58.14 secs split by the rabbit. I guess, as usual, we shouldn't expect to see her really get going before she gets some three, maybe four, races under her belt.

The Polish girls dominated the top three placings headed by Angelica Cichocka in 2:01.60 (SB) where Claire Gibson got a SB of 2:04.16 in ninth.

Rhys Williams turned in a well-improved display to come runner-up in a SB of 49.60 secs behind slight pre-race favourite Danny McFarlane who won in 49.37 secs. That was also inside the B standard for Daegu for the Welshman though he won't need it since he holds the A from Delhi last October.

A lot better from David Hughes as well who ran a big SB of 50.18 secs from the inside lane and looks over a knee complaint that troubled him last month.

On the other hand, Rick Yates looks to be a little all over the shop at the moment as he dragged well behind in seventh in 51.17 but was running blind out in lane nine and that certainly didn't help his cause.

Eilidh Child showed a lot more like herself and mixed it well with the bigger names in the women's lap hurdles to come home a close solid third in a big SB of 56.08 secs, a second B standard for Daegu, as Ukrainian Anastasia Rabchenyuk made the most of an excellent start to gather the spoils in 55.54 secs, a mere hundredth outside her SB set last Monday.

Talking of the Ukrainian girls, I couldn't help but notice some strong early performances across the board in the short distances, either flat or hurdles at the Ukrainian Cup in Yalta.

Beijing finalist Sarah Claxton tied her SB of 13.43 secs (1.4m/sec) to take fifth in the 100m hurdles that was edged by former World Indoor champion Canadian Perdita Felicien in 12.94 secs from Nicole Denby (USA, 12.99). Heptathlete Carolina Tyminska (POL) was fourth in 13.39.

Finally, Chris Baillie set off to 13.92 secs for the season (1.0m/sec) as American Joel Brown swept over the sticks to seventh in the global rankings in 13.26 secs, a SB.

The hosts reserved their best for the curtain drawer of the meeting and weren't let down as indoor European champion Adam Kszczot retained the upper hand over compatriot Marcin Lewandowski, the European outdoor champion, in a PB of 1:44.30 to a SB of 1:44.61 respectively for a double Polish victory.

Joice Maduaka wasn't at her very best today and had to endure a 'terrible', as herself described it, day at the office but she will hopefully rebound in her next outing.