The second youth of the Polish runner. The personal best and the gold are hers!
Marika Popowicz-Drapała is experiencing a second youth. She has just become the gold medalist of the Polish Indoor Championships, setting a new personal record.
During Sunday's part of the Polish Indoor Championships, we witnessed the results of the competition in the crown athletics discipline, at least as far as our country is concerned. Of course, we are talking about the women's 400 meters race, in which several international stars took part.
HMP. The stars advanced to the finals of the 400-meter race
However, no one had a reduced tariff due to status alone. Even the most famous names had to get through in the qualifying rounds. This is how Justyna Święta-Ersetic with a time of 52.74 seconds and Iga Baumgart-Witan reached the finals. In her case, her very presence in Toruń could be surprising. The experienced runner signed up for this competition literally at the last minute – three days before the start.
In addition, Marika Popowicz-Drapała also fought for the title, denies that PESEL plays a key role in running competitions. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we saw, for example, during the Copernicus Cup. This meeting took place about a week and a half before HMP and at the same facility. It was then that the 35-year-old set her personal best over a distance of 400 meters. She improved by as much as 8 hundredths of a second and finally achieved a result of 52.14, which she was very pleased with.
In addition to the above-mentioned stars, there were, of course, several other players in the final. The group of 6 participants was completed by Alicja Wrona-Kutrzepa, Anna Maria Gryc and Kinga Gacka, who has also already achieved great successes – for example, bronze in the women's 4×400 meters relay at the 2022 World Indoor Championships.
Marika Popowicz-Drapała impressed again
The competition for the title of our country's champion promised to be exciting, even if Natalia Kaczmarek did not appear in the capital of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. Despite everything, the fans had nothing to complain about, because there was no shortage of emotions in the women's 400-meter race.
Popowicz-Drapała took the lead at the start, overtaking Święta-Ersetic. At the halfway point, this state of affairs continued, and Kinga Gacka was in third place. The competitors crossed the finish line in exactly this order. Popowicz-Drapała won the gold medal with a time of 51.87 seconds. Thus, she set her new personal record. Iga Baumgart-Witan finished in fourth place.
