Press Release From The European Athletics Association:

Jason Gardener, the fastest European in 2007 and Portuguese long jumping super star Naide Gomes, have been voted the European Athletes of the Month for March.

Gardener, who won his fourth successive European indoor 60m crown in front of a packed home crowd in Birmingham in March answered his critics in the best possible way, leading a British one-two and beating the young pretender to his crown, Craig Pickering, in 6.51 seconds after previously finishing only 7th in the British Indoor Championships in Sheffield.

Known as the “Bath Bullet”, Gardener needed every inch of the self belief and experience he has gained from a long career at the peak of world sprinting to run himself back into form with wins in the British Grand Prix in Birmingham before his unforgettable fourth successive European Indoor crown.

The 27-year-old Gomes had no less an impressive month, retaining her title as Europe’s longest jumper indoors with a world leading winning leap of 6.89m to consolidate her three previous jumps all which would have won her the gold medal over Spain’s Concha Montaner.

Gomes took silver at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg last August and the Portuguese star, who competed in the Heptathlon in the Athens Olympics, will be among the favourites for this years IAAF World Athletics Championships in Osaka in August.

Czech combined eventer Roman Serble took the runner-up spot in the men’s poll ahead of Stefan Holm (SWE) and David Gillick (IRL) while Belgian High Jumper Tia Hellebaut, World Cross Country Champion Lornah Kiplagat (NED) and British 400m star Nicola Saunders did likewise on the women’s side.

The European Athlete of the Month initiative was launched in January 2007 and is designed to recognise outstanding performers at all levels of the sport in Europe. European Athletics will name a male and female winner each month and feature the athlete on the European Athletics website. Selections are based on votes by the public and the media with each counting for 50% of the final vote. The winners will automatically be short listed for the European Athlete of the Year Award. 

Previous winners include:

January: Susanna Kallur (SWE) Ivan Ukhov (RUS)

February:  Yelena Isinbayeva (RUS) David Gillick (IRL)

Thanks

To all those who took part in the online poll!