Svetlana Krivelyova wins the shot put final (© Getty Images)
Tula, RussiaIrina Korzhanenko and Svetlana Krivelyova proved today that they are the outstanding Olympic favourites in the women’s Shot Put, an event which in Russia is always at the centre of the public attention. So naturally it turned out to be the major event of the first day of the Russian Championships.
Maybe the degree of prestige that the event holds explains why the athletes started the competition on the edge of their nerves, and it took three rounds before they reached their expected form.
The two best throwers of this season, Korzhanenko and Krivelyova tried to find out who was the best, and in the process they went past 20 metres four times between them, just as they had done in Kazan at Znamenskiy Memorial – IAAF GPII.
Krivelyova took the lead with 20.14 in the third round. Then Korzhanenko bettered the result with an excellent 20.79 – the world season’s best! Krivelyova did her utmost to improve and in the sixth putted her best of – 20.69. That would have been the world season best before these Russian championships. In third, Olga Ryabinkina matched her personal best – 19.10.
So no surprises occurred and the coaches were happy with the excellent results. The competitions were held according to the Olympic schedule – the qualifying competitions in the morning and the final with 12 participants in the afternoon. The first three from these championships are now confirmed on the team for Olympia, and there are serious hopes that they will do no worse there than in Tula today.
After the competition had finished a crowd of people rushed to congratulate Irina Korzhanenko, and there were voices in the crowd who shouted “do the same in Olympia!” But Irina only shook her head praying that they would not say such things because she was so superstitious!
In men’s Shot Put, Ivan Yushkov won the championship with 20.27. Pavel Sofin was the second – 19.89. Pavel Chumachenko, the defending champion took the bronze medal – 19.62.
Qualifying results
In the women’s Hammer, Olga Kuzenkova led after the qualifying round – 70.96 - with her first attempt. Her young opponenets were not at their best. Tatyana Lisenko and Yelena Konevtseva qualified with their first attempts too but their results were not so impressive. The recent heroine of Znamenskiy Memorial, Gulfiya Hanafeeva hardly made the final throwing only the 12th best result – 58.48.
In the men’s Hammer, 74 metres was the mark to make the final, and the main favourites did it on their first attempt. Sergey Kirmasov led with 76.40, with Ilya Konovalov next – 75.15. Yuriy Voronkin’s best result was 74.72. One of the strongest Russian Hammer throwers Aleksei Zagorniy failed to make the final.
The veteran Ekaterina Ivakina, born in 1964, topped the women’s Javelin after the qualifying with 58.92. Oksana Yarigina is second – 58.60 and Valentina Zabruskova is third – 56.11.
Aleksandr Ivanov who is the world season leader in the men’s Javelin started the qualifying competition unsuccessfully and was seriously reprimanded by his father – coach Vitaliy Ivanov. Though 73.81 is 15 metres less then his season best Aleksandr still made the final. The World champion Sergei Makarov led with 80.24, and he made that distance without any visible effort.
Men’s Discus – Yuriy Seskin qualified first with 58.28. Young Bogdan Pizshalnikov was next behind him – 57.92.
What was a bit surprising was that Bogdan’s younger sister Darya Pishchainikova who won the World Junior silver medal in Grosseto made the women’s final with 56.65.
The qualification was led by world season leader Natalya Sadova with only one attempt – 65.10. And please do not forget the 1993 World champion Olga (Burova) Chernavskaya who made 62.29 with her first attempt. Olga will celebrate her 41st birthday in September.
A practice for the volunteers!
Those who wanted to test their form took part in some additional minor competitions but which did not count as championship races.
Svetlana Pospelova won the women's 400m – 51.69. The well known hurdler Ruslan Mashchenko won the same distance for the men – 46.84. In the women’s 100m, Irina Khabarova was first with her personal best – 11.25. Larisa Kruglova finished second, just 0.01 down. Sergey Bichkov won the men’s 100m in 10.26.
Nickolai Dolgopolov and Rostislav Orlov for the IAAF
