Aleksey Voyevodin (RUS) celebrates winning the 50km race in Naumburg (© Getty Images)
The places for the Russian team for the IAAF World Race Walking Cup, have been decided from the outstanding performances achieved in the National Winter Championships, held at the Black Sea resort of Adler near the city of Sochi over the weekend of 19-20 February.
The twenty second edition of the IAAF World Race Walking Cup will take place over the city streets of La Coruña, northern Spain on Saturday 13 & Sunday 14 May 2006. The results from Adler suggest that young Russian walking talent that featured so prominently in recent junior international competitions have rapidly achieved levels sufficient to challenge for senior medals at the World Cup.
In the twenty first edition of the premier global race walking team competition held in Naumburg, Germany, two years ago, Russians claimed two of the five individual winners and two team titles. They can also now boast two gold medallists from the World Championships in Helsinki last summer, in the shape of Olimpiada Ivanova in the women's 20km Race Walk and Sergey Kirdyapkin in the men’s 50km Race Walk.
These two plus Helsinki silver medallist and two times World Cup winner Alexsey Voyevodin in the 50km, and 10th placer at 20km in Helsinki Vladimir Stankin were pre-selected for La Coruña. The rest of the team to contest the three senior races and for junior men and womenÕs races over 10km were to be selected from the first four finishers in each event at Adler.
One standout performances from the weekend came from twenty year old Vladimir Kanaykin who, for the third year in a row, set a world best for the intermediate 35km distance. In both 2004 and 2005 he walked exactly the same time of 2:23:17, but this year recorded an even more astonishing 2:21:31 - with 10km splits of 41:17, 1:21:20, and 2:01:13 taking him 1:46 inside his own previous record. Having blazed a trail for Voyevodin in Naumburg and Kirdyapkin in Helsinki, as well as being disqualified while on World Record pace in the junior 10km at Naumburg two years ago, Russia will hope he will last the extra 15km in La Coruña.
The team has plenty in reserve however, as second was Athens Olympic silver medallist at 50km Denis Nishegorodov, making a return to competition, in 2:24:50, third was the 2004 World Cup winning team member - Yuriy Andronov in 2:26:51 - and fourth was Vladimir Potemin in 2:29:00.
The senior men's 20km winner was the Russian Under 23 Champion and 1991 World bronze medallist Viktor Burayev, recording a time of 1:19:27.
It was a youthful battle at the front of the women's 20km race with twenty one year old Saransk walker Olga Kaniskina winning by 12 seconds in 1:26:02 from 20 year Irina Petrova of St. Petersburg - a reverse of last year's European under 23 Championships finishing order.
Vera Sokolova's role as the world leading junior woman walker the last two years appears to be under serious threat as the World Cup and European title holder was beaten into third place by Yelena Ladanova and Aleksandra Kudryashova who walked amazing 10km times of 43:23 and 43:28 respectively.
Tim Watt for the IAAF
Results
(first four selected for World Cup, in addition to pre-selections).
20km Men Road Championship
1 Victor Buraev 1:19:27
2 Igor Erokhin 1:19:32
3 Stepan Yudin 1:19:51
4 Sergey Bakulin 1:19:54
5 Dmitriy Esipchuk 1:20:23
6 Alexander Prokhorov 1:20:51
7 Sergey Georgiy 1:20:57
8 Aleksey Cronin 1:21:42
9 Sergey Chernov 1:21:54
10 Sergey Safarov 1:22:08
35km Road Walk Men
1 Vladimir Kanaykin 2:21:31
2 Denis Nizhegorodov 2:24:50
3 Yuri Andronov 2:26:51
4 Vladimir Potemin 2:29:00
5 Andrey Krivov 2:29:44
6 Vladimir Parvatkin 2:31:33
7 Sergey Melentev 2:34:47
8 Vyacheslav Golovin 2:35:22
9 Sergey Petrov 2:37:05
10 Victor Ginko 2:39:30
Sergey Kirdyapkin DNF
10 km Road Walk Junior Men
1 Sergey Morozov 39:45
2 Aleksey Grigoryev 40:55
3 Dmitriy Shorin 41.00
4 Andrey Ryabushev 41:16
5 Artem Bisyukov 41:43
6 Andrey Makolov 42:01
7 Andrey Trofimov 42:08
8 Denis Bulikov 42:09
9 Artem Chernov 42:21
10 Sergey Trush 42:32
20km Road Walk Women
1 Olga Kaniskina 1:26:02
2 Petrova Irina 1:26:14
3 Ludmila Efimkina 1:26:57
4 Kozlova Tatiana 1:28:20
5 Nartova Alena 1:28:51
6 Voyevodin Julia 1:29:01
7 Marina Smyslova 1:29:31
8 Tatiana Gudkova 1:29:46
9 Ludmila Arkhipova 1:29:49
10 Galina Kolpakova 1:30:46
10km Junior Women Road Walk
1 Yelena Ladanova 43:23
2 Aleksandra Kudryashova 43:28
3 Vera Sokolova 43:49
4 Olga Mazurenok 44:30
5 Okzana Kirillova 44:47
6 Tatiana Shemyakina 44:51
7 NatalÕya Kozlov 46:40
8 Anna Drobenya 47:35
9 Ekaterina Popova 47:36
10 Yelena Shumkina 47:42
