Menkova, Toth voted April 2012 Athletes

Matej Toth - European Athlete of April 2012

European Athletics is pleased to announce that Belarus hammer thrower Oksana Menkova and Slovakian walker Matej Tóth have been voted as the European Athletes of the Month for April.

Menkova, the 2008 Olympic champion, threw an outstanding national record of 78.19m at the Yevgeniy Shukevich Memorial meeting in Brest on 28 April. Her first 70m-plus throw since 2009 takes the 30-year-old thrower to the number three spot on the world and European all-time lists behind Germany’s Betty Heidler (79.42m) and Anita Włodarczyk of Poland (78.30m).

Tóth won over 20km at the European Athletics Race Walking Meeting in the Czech spa town of Podebrady on 21 April. He also won at the IAAF Race Walking Challenge meeting in Rio Maior, Portugal, the previous week.

Valentina Straneo improved the Italian national marathon record to 2:23:44 and set a European-leading time when she finished second in the Rotterdam Marathon on 15 April. For her remarkable run she was voted second in the women’s poll. Poland’s Paulina Buziak, who set a national record of 1:29:44 at the 10th Race Walking meeting in Zaniemysl on 22 April, finished third.

In the men’s poll, Italian long distance runner Daniele Meucci, who ran a European-leading time of 27:32.86 for the 10,000m in Stanford, California, was voted second. Great Britain’s Martyn Rooney, who set a world-leading time of 44.92 over one lap of the track at the Mt SAC Relays in California on 21 April, finished third.

European Athletics’ monthly poll received overwhelming support from thousands of athletics fans and media alike this month from across the continent.

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. A male and female winner each month is named and featured on the European Athletics website.