Yuliya Pechonkina wins the 2002 IAAF World Cup 400m Hurdles (© Getty Images)
Russia’s Yulia Pechonkina shocked the world of Athletics on Friday 8 August when she smashed the women’s World 400 metres Hurdles record at the national championships in Tula, with a time of 52.34 seconds which took apart Kim Batten’s 52.61 standard which had stood since 1995.
As a precursor to this feat Pechonkina had run the previous world season’s lead the day before in the heats of the Russian championships with a 53.52 performance, in what was only her fourth 400m Hurdles race of the year.
Pechonkina (née Nosova), the reigning World silver medallist had hoped to have given the world a new record at the IAAF World Cup last year in Madrid. But just before the start a heavy rain and hail storm covered the stadium, and the race was delayed and even when it was run, the track which was still rather wet and it slowed her winning time to 53.74.
In October last year, she began new more intensive preparations to get the record and to win at the 2003 World Championships.
”From the beginning she wanted to achieve everything,” confirmed Pechonkina’s coach Valentin Maslakov, who is head coach for the Russian team for the sprint events. “We knew that winter competitions in the flat 400m would help us, and on 7 January (2003) she made her first start in Samara, and ran as we had planned.”
”Unfortunately, some days later her first stroke happened. She felt dizziness and began vomiting, but in 4 days she was all right again, and we decided that it was not very serious. She continued to run as never before, recovering very quickly after heavy stressful training sessions.”
“Her illness problems had begun about a year and a half before but in a more mild form and they did not occur very often, and it had not effected her running.”
“At the national championships she ran 400m with her best – 51.00 and got the place in the team. And only period problems on the day of the semi-final in Birmingham (World Indoor championships) prevented her from entering the final.”
Two days later the situation would be quite different, as in the 4x400m relay she showed good form.
Pechonkina’s spring training traditionally began at the sports base in Adler on the Black Sea, and this year was aimed at achieving the World record at the beginning of the summer at the Znamenskiy memorial meet.
“May be we had done too much work and she needed more time for rest after the Indoor championships,” confirmed Maslakov. “And at the same time she does not control the intensity of her training and very often I stop her when she is running too fast. She does not feel her speed.”
”But there may be another reason which brought on the new much more severe illness which happened to her in May. At the end of April she made a trip at her home city Krasnoyarsk in Siberia and there began taking some sliming medicine. She was telling me that she had got too fat at the sports camp. When she returned in Adler to renew the training I was surprised by her thinness.”
”I remember very well that day when her new illness began. On 10 May in the evening after cross-training she felt a headache, and began vomiting and feeling dizzy. We tried to cure it at the sports base in Adler but with each day the situation was worsening. After 6 days we sent her home to Krasnoyarsk. I was afraid that she would miss all the season.”
”The first information from the doctors in Krasnoyarsk alarmed me very much, as there was something wrong with her blood and perhaps with her kidneys. But slowly she was recovering, and in a month she returned to renew the training.”
”In Krasnoyarsk, the best Siberian doctors have done a huge amount of work to cure Yulia. She is a real sports person and showed great courage in fighting with the illness. She made her return step by step under the supervision of the doctor."
But now she needs to take medicine especially when the weather changes,” confirmed Valentin Maslakov, who concluded by saying Pechonkina is ready to run in Paris and to produce a new World record.
