Azernews.Az

By Laman Ismayilova

European champion in triple jump Nazim Babayev has won a gold medal at the 26th Balkan Indoor Championships in Istanbul.

Nazim Babayev is an Azerbaijani track and field athlete who specializes in the triple jump and long jump.

In 2015, he won the triple jump competition at 2015 European Games in Baku.

A month later, Babayev set a championship record, national junior record and world junior lead when he leaped 17.04m in the triple jump at 2015 European Athletics Junior Championships. He qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio for the Men's triple jump.

Another national athlete, Yekaterina Sariyeva took the fourth place, while Rustam Mammadov ranked sixth.

Earlier, Yekaterina Sariyeva won gold medals at Islam7ic Solidarity Games 2013 and a bronze medal at Islamic Solidarity Games 2017.

Sariyeva participated in the Islamic Solidarity Games 2013 under the Azerbaijani flag. In the finals of the triple jump, she took first place with a result of 13.28 meters and won the gold medal of the Islamic Solidarity Games 2013

In 2017, Yekaterina Sariyeva competed in the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games. In the finals of the long jump, she took ninth place with a result of 5.27 meters. In the finals of the triple jump, she placed third with a result of 12.81 meters and won a bronze medal.

At the same time Yelena Pekhtireva took the seventh place in the long jump at the 26th Balkan Indoor Championships.

Azerbaijani athletes competed in field and track (60 m and 3, 000 m) and jumping. The national team included four athletes trained by Ziyad Khalfayev and Vidadi Alisgandarov.

Nearly eleven Balkan Championships are staged every year aimed at providing competition opportunities to Balkan athletes to gain experience on the international stage.

Those regional competitions are an indispensable link between national and top international events and are much appreciated by athletes, coaches and federations.

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