The Cup of the Governor of Krasnodar region was held in the indoor athletic arena of Krasnodar on Wednesday 4 February. The Krasnodar region is very close to the capital of Winter Olympics of 2014 Sochi.

The meeting programme was rather compact but the results in nearly all the events were rather high.

In the men's 60m dash, World Indoor silver medallist Andrey Yepishin clocked 6.67 sec in the heat a time which is the best result currently of the Russian season. But after a poor start in the final he was only third in 6.75 sec. He was passed by Aleksandr Volkov, who was the winner in 6.73 and by the unknown sprinter the 24-year-old Kagim Gamzatov from the Republic of Dagestan (6.75).

Tatyana Pavliy became the first Russian hurdler this season to dip under 8 seconds in the women’s 60m Hurdles, taking the victory in 7.99 sec.  Anastasiya Solovieva is considered to be the revelation of this season. The young hurdler was the runner-up in 8.06, and was faster than Russian champions from past years, the experienced Irina Shevchenko and Olga Korsunova who clocked the same time of 8.15.

Two athletes of well-known Russian coach Galina Shkurlatova registered victories in the Long Jumps.

In the men’s competition, her son Vitaliy Shkulatov with a leap of 7.80m defeated Dmitriy Plotnikov (7.76) and 2008 Russian champion Sergei Mikhailovskiy (7.68). The latter two are both 22 years of age.

Olga Kucherenko who is also coached by Galina Shkurlatova seems to be the rising star of the season. On Sunday (1 Feb) she won the Russian Winter tournament with a leap of 6.81m, while here in Krasnodar she produced another fine win of 6.80m. In fact on two of her efforts she reached 6.80m and the worst of her jumps was 6.73m. Yeltna Sokolova was second with 6.60m and Yekaterina Malisheva was third, 6.41m. Tatyana Chernova, the Olympic Heptathlon bronze medallist opened her year taking fourth with a jump of 6.14m.

Yevgeniy Lukyanenko, the Olympic silver medallist in the Pole Vault cleared 5.50m, enough to beat Aleksandr Gripich who was the second (5.40). His father Sergei Gripich is his coach as well as the coach of Lukyanenko.

Nickolai Dolgopolov and Rostislav Orlov for the IAAF   

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