Balkan Athletics Championships 2025 Volos Greece : The organization of records

31 July 2025

The 77th ^Balkan Championship can well be described as the event of records.

From the very first year of the three-year Balkan Games in Greece, both the organizational and competitive level of the games took off. On the two-day event of July 26-27, five competition records were broken at the Panthessaliko in Volos – three of them by Greeks.

Emmanuel Karalis broke his own 5.70 in the pole vault from 2021 with a jump of 5.92 – and almost with 6.11 – and the Greek 4X100 m team with Lambros Volikas, Nikolas Panagiotopoulos, Sotiris Garagkanis and Vasilis Myrianthopoulos took the record that belonged to Turkey and was 39.09 from 2023 with a time of 39.03. It is worth noting that the Turkish foursome also ran faster than the previous performance with a time of 39.05.

Ukrainian Oleksandr Pokhorilko broke his own record in the 400 m with 45.10 (old 45.36 from 2023), while Croatian Marino Bludek in the 800 m with 1.45.55 broke a 51-year-old record, Luciano Susani’s 1.45.73.

In the women’s events, one performance was broken, by Elina Djengo in the javelin , who with 62.83 erased her own 61.42 from 2021 from the lists.

The medal table

Of the 22 Balkan Athletics countries, 19 won at least one medal and 12 at least one gold.

Greece led the way with 13 gold, 15 silver and 4 bronze medals. The men’s record was 5-5-2, the women’s 8-9-2, while one silver medal came from the mixed relay. Turkey, second in the standings, showed its strength in endurance events by winning 6 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze in the distances from 800 to 3,000 meters.