Marseilles (AFP)

The young French Cyréna Samba-Mayela and Wilhem Belocian confirmed their great form on the hurdles during the Marseille meeting on Thursday, at the heart of a season truncated by the new coronavirus pandemic.

The Marseille City meeting represents the first international level competition to be played in France this summer, while the season started exceptionally late in August without the Games (postponed to 2021) or the Euro de Paris, canceled.

In the shade of the Vélodrome stadium, the setting sun on Mont Puget and its jagged cliffs south of Marseille must have inspired Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, multi-medalist on hurdles and amateur photographer.

But it was his younger siblings who shone on Thursday.

Wilhem Belocian stumbled over the Spaniard Orlando Ortega, a fit man for the season (13.15, -0.3 m / s of wind), while setting a good time (13.27).

"It's important to have consistency, I stay on my form, I hope it will go down further," he said.

- 'Much desire' -

He thus confirms his personal best established in mid-August in Monaco (13.18), already behind Ortega, and his place among the very best hurdlers in the world, he who has long been confined to a role of great hope in French athletics.

His world record in the 110m junior hurdles (12.99, shared with Jamaican Damion Thomas), was not endangered by the nugget Sasha Zhoya on Thursday (13 sec 28 on lower hurdles).

Further back, "PML" finished 3rd in the 110m hurdles in 13 sec 63 but was able to be satisfied as he made his comeback after coming back from an injury to a quadriceps.

"I had a lot of desire, I am very happy to be back in competition, do not expect a + perf + from me, he reacted. But I will go up crescendo, today I reassured myself, I I'm going to be able to resume training more or less normally, because it's not completely healed, I still felt things, during the warm-up, in the race ... "

- Mélina Robert-Michon at more than 60 m -

Still on the hurdles, Cyréna Samba-Mayela won a prestigious victory in 13 sec 00 (-0.8 m / s of wind) ahead of the Belarusian Elvira Herman (13.13), reigning European champion.

At only 19 years old, the athlete trained by Teddy Tamgho thus confirmed his excellent time achieved last week in Chorzow in Poland (12.87) and his potential ten months from the Tokyo Games and four years from the Paris Games.

"I am maturing in each race even if I did not beat my personal best as I expected by coming to a meeting like the one in Marseille, she said. But I am happy, and constant around thirteen seconds. Technically, I still have things to improve, obviously. "

In the discus throw, Olympic vice-champion Mélina Robert-Michon threw at 60.02 m in the same competition as the world record holder in the decathlon, Kevin Mayer, still in search of benchmarks, who validated 49.65 m.

The audience of a few hundred people (the maximum gauge was set at 1,000) also witnessed a good level of 1,500m with the victory of Moroccan steepler Soufiane El Bakkali (3: 34.51) and personal bests for French Azeddine Habz ( 2nd in 3: 35.87) and Jimmy Gressier (3: 36.22), five days after his discovery of the 3,000 m steeplechase last Saturday (8: 24.72).

The Blues have an appointment on September 12 and 13 for the French Championships in Albi.

© 2020 AFP