Yelena Yelesina (RUS) jumps for Olympic gold in Sydney (© Getty Images)
Anna Chicherova, the 2001 European Junior High Jump silver medallist cleared a national indoor senior record of 2.04m at the Luch indoor meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia on Tuesday (7 January). In the process the 20-year-old Russian beat her more illustrious compatriot Yelena Yelesina, the reigning Olympic champion, who was also in fine form with a 2.01 clearance.
Chicherova is in the midst of a glorious spell of improving form having increased her personal best to 2.00 on 26 December 2002 in Bryansk. Her previous best prior to that leap having been her 1.93 performance when placing second in the Yekaterinburg meet this time last year.
Her further improvement last Tuesday to 2.04m makes her the equal third best performer ever indoors, alongside the more well known names of Tamara Bykova (URS), Romania’s Moniac Iagar and Marina Kuptsova (RUS), with only Bulgaria’s Stefka Kostadinova and the world indoor record holder Heike Henkel (GER) - who cleared 2.07 in 1992 - ahead of her on the all-time indoor lists.
"I'm delighted" said Chicherova, "if you had told me a year ago that I would clear 2.04m I would never have believed it. It seems like I've scaled Everest!"
The young Russian credits her improvement to a change of coach and training. "Before, I was with Feitsov but since August 2002 I've been working with Evgueni Zagaroulka, who used to coach Tamara Bykova. We have changed a lot of things in my training, not only regarding the physical preparation but in terms of technique as well."
Chicherova, who was fourth at the 2000 World Junior championships, and has a 1.92 outdoor personal best which she registered in 2001 (last summer her best outdoors was 1.89), has scheduled her next major competition for 2 February in Stuttgart.
Women’s High Jump(7 Jan 2003) – all Russian
1. Anna Chicherova (22.7.82), 2.04m National Record
2. Yelena Yelesina , 2.01m Personal Best
3. Viktoriya Seryogina, 1.89m
4. Yekaterina Aleksandrova, 1.80m
L'Equipe newspaper, Tilastopaja results service and IAAF.
