News06 Jun 2006


Russia beats Italy and China in Florence

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Anna Pyatykh of Russia in the Triple Jump final (© Getty Images)

Russia beat Italy and China in an International Match held on 4 June in the Luigi Ridolfi stadium in Florence, Italy, a venue which has hosted editions of the European Cup in 2003 and 2005.

Russia dominated the contest overall notching up ten women's competition victories, a clean sweep apart from the women’s Javelin Throw which went to World Championships finalist Zahra Bani of Italy who made 61.21m, just two centimetres off her seasonal best set at the Belem IAAF World Athletics meeting in May.

The Russian team featured some big names. Among the stars who made the trip to Tuscany were triple jumper Anna Pyatykh, the World indoor silver medallist in Moscow last March and the World bronze medallist in Helsinki last summer. Pyatykh who returned to the same venue where she won European Cup titles in 2003 and 2005, leapt to 14.32m.

World Indoor bronze medallist Olga Ryabinkina produced a winning release of 18.39m in the women’s Shot Put, while Anastasya Kapachinskaya returned from two years absence to win the 200 metres in 23.09.

In the men’s High Jump, the 20-year-old Russian Ivan Ukhov, the reigning European Junior champion, and a 2.37 indoor performer this winter, cleared 2.28 defeating by three centimetres the Italian twin brothers, Giulio and Nicola Ciotti, who finished respectively second and third with the same height of 2.25m.

Other good results for the Russian team were Yuliya Golubchikova’s 4.45m in the Pole Vault and Yevgeniya Isakova’s 55.13 run in the women’s 400 metres Hurdles.
  
Apart from Zahra Bani’s win, the other good news for the Italian team came from 2003 World champion and 2004 Olympic bronze medallist Giuseppe Gibilisco who vaulted 5.50m on his third attempt to beat Russia’s European Indoor champion Igor Pavlov (5.40).

Another good result for the “azzurri” was achieved by the under-23 men’s 4x100m relay team which featured Italian Long Jump and sprint star Andrew Howe on the second leg. The young italians (Rosario La Mastra, Andrew Howe, Stefano Anceschi, Fabio Cerutti) broke the Italian under-23 record with 39.06, just eleven hundredths of a second off the European under 23 record held by France.

Andrea Longo took a tactical men’s 800 metres race in 1:49.47 in his comeback to competition after a 2005 season plagued by injuries. Italy’s Silvia Weissteiner, second in the European 10,000 metres Challenge in Antalya in April, showed her usual competitive spirit lowering her PB in the 5000 metres with 15:26.92, which earned her the second place behind winner Regina Rakhimkulova from Russia (15:26.15).

China sent a young team to the match with athletes aiming at getting international experience two years before the Olympic Games in Bejing. Chinese sprinters won both the men’s 100 metres with Kai Hu (10.28), and the 200 metres with Yaozu Yang (20.82). In the field events, Chinese men clinched two more wins thanks to Jan Song in the Long Jump (7.98) and Qi Chen in the Javelin Throw (80.30).
 
Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF 
 
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