By Sevket F. ERBAY

Balkan Athletics Championships, once called as the "Games", was deeply-rooted regional event which reached 75th edition in Craiova this year. In the beginning of new millennium, the event was in crisis, but it could be considered 'rejuvenated' in recent years for some ways, although performance level still doesn't comparable with 1970s or 80s. 

In Craiova, 20 ABAF members contested in 75th Balkan Champs and eighteen of them entered to the medal table. Greece retain their lead from last year as Romania and Turkey performed well. These three traditional Balkan countries have secured combine 64 of 126 available medals at stake. 

Here we summarised some clarified facts in the Balkan Athletics after this year's edition. 

5. IVANA VULETA IS A SUPERSTAR
Serbian world champion long jumper Ivana Spanovic-Vuleta is not being visited the Balkan Champs frequently, but she decided to go out in Craiova for double, and did it. In the first day, Vuleta has leapt 14.24 in the first international competition in this specific event since 2014 and reached top of the podium. In the next day, she back to business in long jump to produce 6.83 (+2.6) effort to get double crown. 32 year-old Serbian became only second women to complete jumping double at the Balkans after Gabriela Petrova did it so in 2020.

4. BULGARIAN CRISIS DEEPENS
 One of the leading forces in the region by years, Bulgaria has recently suffering a big crash in athletics. They did not produce a world champion since 1995 and Olympic gold medallist since 2000. Now, they're struggling even in the Balkan level and not having prominent future stars as well. With the absence of country's biggest star Ivet Lalova-Collio, Bulgaria has able to win only two medals in Craiova, thanks to high jumpers Tihomir Ivanov and Mirela Demireva. It was recorded as worst-ever result for once-leading Bulgarian at the Balkan Champs.

3. TURKEY STABLE AT TOP
Turkey is most populous country in the ABAF family but never reached to the top level until 2010s. In recent years, they've secured up to 20 medals in average and once more Turkish athletes reached 22 in total - one medal shy from leading Greece (23). Not only the numbers, also variation is a gain for the Turks where they existed in every department from sprints to throws.

2. ROMANIAN RELAY MACHINE HASN'T WORK WELL
Romania has well-known by years with their strong relay winning teams. They have world-class 4x400m women team that won 10 consecutive Balkan titles as well. Even so, their sprinting quartets produced numerous good finishes out there to strenght their fame in relay races. In Craiova, they put all four teams on track as possible as strong, but clinched single gold medal in men's 4x100 metres. Men's 4x4 and Women's 4x100 teams were well out of top three and once famous female 4x4 quartet could just grabbed bronze ahead of Turkey. In comparison, Romania has placed in podium in all four relays between 2017 to 2020, but climbed only two podiums in last couple of editions.

1. LUIZA GEGA TOO GOOD FOR BALKANS
33 year-old Albanian distancer Luiza Gega has stamped to the Balkans with her double gold as expected. As officially acquired "most winning female athlete" at Balkan Indoors in March, she proved once more where she is well ahead of Balkan rivals. Gega won 5000 metres in the first day nearly 40 seconds gap, then added her collection first Balkan steeplechase title with producing more than half a minute gap, too! The Albanian also broke 3000SC championship record by 16 seconds.