Olga Kuzenkova of Russia (© Getty Images)
A 71.38m Hammer throw from women’s European champion Olga Kuzenkova, and a 1:58.05 800m run by Natalya Khruschelyova, were the major results of a rain soaked Znamensky Memorial - IAAF Grand Prix II - meeting at the Arsenal stadium on Sunday (8 June).
Kuzenkova won the women's Hammer throw with a release of 71.38 but did not have the challenge of world season’s leader (75.20m) Manuela Montebrun of France, who had beaten her in Hengelo,(1 June) but who withdrew before the start of the competition today.
Kuzenkova says that there is still much to be done to achieve in Paris the level of 74-75 m. Olga thinks that only such results are going to have any chance to beat Montebrun.
All in all there were very few international athletes competing in Tula, with the vast majority of competitors at the meeting being Russian nationals.
The one notable exception was Ivan Tikhon of Belarus who won the men’s Hammer with 81.04m. The 27-year-old Tikhon was the 1997 European U23 champion, and finished fourth at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
In the women’s 800m, 30 year-old Khruschelyova’s time of 1:58.05 was just slower than the world’s season lead that World and Olympic champion Maria Mutola of Mozambique, clocked at the Eugene, Oregon, IAAF GP on May 24. A tight second to Khruschelyova was fellow Russian Larisa Chzhao - 31 years old - who ran a personal best of 1:58.71.
Russia's Marina Kuptsova, the 2002 European Indoor champion, who holds the current world lead after jumping 2.02m in Hengelo on 1 June, won the women's High Jump with a leap of 1.98m, an impressive result in the rain. She beat Russian Indoor record holder Anna Chicherova (1.96, second), and Olympic champion Yelena Yelesina (1.94) in fourth. Viktoriya Seryogina was third on 1.96m.
Anna in the first jump very easily overcame 1,96, while Marina made it in her second attempt. But she got 1,98 in her first powerful jump. Anna did not manage to do the same and took the second place after Kuptsova who came to Tula just one hour before her competitions because her father’s car broke down on the way from Moscow.
“I promise that in July Anna will be at her top form,“ said her coach Yevgeniy Zagorulko.
Meanwhile Marina said that the competition was spoiled by the rainy and rather cold weather but she was very satisfied that she has beaten her main opponent in Russia.
Kuptsova as other winners at the Znamenskiy Memorial entered the team for the European Cup. She knows that the victory in Florence will give her the place in the national team for the World Championships.
Marina’s coach and father Gennadiy Kuptsov says that she was greatly disappointed by the fact that she was not selected in the team for the World Indoor Championships. The day that the high jump was being contested in Birmingham, she jumped 2.02 three times during training in Moscow.
“It was a big mistake that Marina did not compete in Birmingham, Our team has lost the gold medal,” says Kuptsov. “She was a real leader of the winter season and ready to beat her foreign rivals. Now each time she enters the stadium, our aim is to jump a new Russian record 2.06.”
European Indoor 60m silver medallist Marina Kislova of Russia took an impressive sprint double, clocking 11.21(+1.3m/s wind) and 23.02 (-0.1) for the 100m and 200m respectively. Over the barriers, Natalya Shekhodanova beat Svetlana Laukhova 12.88 to 12.89 to win the sprint hurdles (+1.3).
European 5000m silver medallist Yelena Zadorozhnaya showed an impressive turn of speed at 1500m taking the win in 4:06.22, over two seconds ahead of Olga Yegorova, the World 5000m champion, with European Championships 1500m bronze medallist Tatyana Tomashova, third in 4:06.28. In all six women ran faster than 4:10.
There was a 14.45m (-0.1) Triple Jump victory for Anna Pyatykh, with another three women over 14 metres in a classy competition.
The women’s Shot Put was won by 2002 European champion Irina Korzhanenko who took the narrowest of wins - 19.28 to 19.27m - over 1992 Olympic champion Svetlana Krivelyova, who she also beat into second at the European championships last summer.
RUSSIAN TEAM FOR THE EUROPEAN CUP
The chief coach of Russian team Valeriy Kulichenko says that his team is formed of those athletes who has proved that they can show the results in Cup competitions and support the team. They are tested team fighters who will win as many points as possible.
"We have a standard team of the same level as we had last year," says Kulichenko. "The women’s team will be fighting for the first place, If our men’s team will show it’s best they have a chance to come third. Russian athletes have got a good motivation."
"Those who’ll take 1st or 2nd places are to be selected in the national team for the World Championships. But some leading athletes decided to miss the first phase of summer season. They are planning to achieve top form much later, on the eve of Russian Championships at the beginning of August. So I can say that we managed to select quite good team for the Cup, but our selection was affected by the coming World Championships."
The list of the Russian team for the European Cup:
Men: 100 m Andrey Yepishin. 200 m Anton Galkin. 400 m Dmitriy Forshev. 800 m Dmitriy Bogdanov. 1500 m Andrey Zadorozhniy. 3000 m Viacheslav Shabunin. 5000 m Sergey Lukin 110 m/h Igor Peremota. 400 m/h Ruslan Maschenko 3000 m steeple Pavel Potapovich. 4x100 m Aleksandr Ryabov, Sergey Blinov, Aleksandr Smirnov, Andrey Yepishin, Roman Smirnov, Anton Galkin. 4x400 m Aleksandr Usov, Andrey Semenov, Yuriy Borzakovskiy, Dmitriy Forshev, Ruslan Maschenko. High jump Petr Braiko. Pole vault Artiom Kuptsov. Long jump Kirill Sosunov. Triple Jump Denis Kapustin. Shot put Pavel Chumachenko Discus Dmitriy Shevchenko Hummer Yuriy Voronkin. Javelin Sergei Makarov.
Women: 100 m Marina Kislova. 200 m Anastasiya Kapachinskaya 400 m Svetlana Pospelova. 800 m Natalya Khrushecheleva. 1500 m Ekaterina Rozenberg. 3000 m Olga Yegorova. 5000 m Yelena Zadorozhnaya. 100 m/h Svetlana Laukhova. 400 m/h Oksana Gulumyan 2000 m steeple Gulnara Sabitova. 4x100 m Larisa Kruglova, Olga Fedorova, Natalya Ignatova, Marina Kislova, Oksana Ekk. 4x400 m Svetlana Pospelova, Tatyana Firova, natalya Ivanova, Natalya Lavshuk, Natalya Khrushecheleva. High jump Marina Kuptsova. Pole vault Tatiana Polnova. Long jump Lyudmila Galkina. Triple jump Anna Pyatykh. Shot put Svetlana Kriveleva. Discus throw Natalya Sadova. Hammer throw Olga Kuzenkova. Javelin throw Valeriya Zabruskova.
IAAF & Nikolay Ivanov
