Translated material
After the rain on Thursday
Last Friday will go down in the history of our athletics
Athletes joke: if you want rain, organize an athletics competition. A sure sign. On the fourth day of the championship, a thunderous downpour struck in sultry Barcelona. And just in time for the final high jump competition.The stadium scoreboard showed Sergei Klyugin, the personal trainer of Ivan Ukhov, one of the current Russian participants in the championship, and Sergei’s Olympic victory in Sydney 2000 immediately came to mind. There, too, it started to rain during the jumps, but by that time Sergei had already managed to overcome the height that brought him a gold medal. This time, bad weather put everyone on an equal footing, and the two Russians who handled it best were the current season leader (with a result of 2.34) Ivan Ukhov and Alexander Shustov (2.33). Only they conquered the height of 2.31. Ivan overcame it on the second try, Alexander on the third. But at the next turn of 2.33, luck smiled only on Shustov, who dealt with him with the first jump. In this situation, Ukhov had no choice but to ask to raise the bar to 2.35, but he failed to achieve this height. Thus, Shustov became the champion for the first time in his career. Ukhov has “silver”. As for our third participant in the final, Alexey Dmitrik, he was content with seventh place with a jump of 2.26.
These two medals turned out to be the only ones in the Russian team’s treasury that day, but the next, fourth day of the championship, apparently turned out to be decisive in the distribution of places at the top of the standings. He brought our team ten medals - five gold, two silver and three bronze.
Walker Sergei Bakulin opened the scoring, finishing third in the 50 km distance with a personal best of 3:43.26. The result is not bad, considering that Sergei started at this distance for only the fourth time in his career.
To be honest, of course, in this type of program we were counting on more, but two-time world champion Sergei Kirdyapkin’s walking in the middle of the track did not go well (his legs, as he later put it, stopped), and eight kilometers before the finish he was forced to retire . The bronze medalist of the previous European Championship, Yuri Andronov, this time took only tenth place (3:54.22). But the Frenchman Johan Dini, despite falling eight kilometers before the finish, managed to defend his title of European champion, with the best result of the season in the world - 3:40.37.
The beginning of the evening program of the fourth day of the competition was marked by the second victorious hat-trick performed by our team. After our girls’ triple victory in the 20 km walk, the entire podium was occupied by the 400 m runners. Four years ago in this discipline we had two medals (“silver” and “bronze”), this time we won the full set. The champion was Tatyana Firova, who managed to set the best result of the season in Europe - 49.89. Silver medalist Ksenia Ustalova also ran out of 50 seconds - 49.92. The heroine of the Berlin World Championship, Antonina Krivoshapka, finished third, showing her best result this year - 50.10.
At the same distance, but with hurdles, there were no equals to our Natalya Antyukh, who set a new European Championships record - 52.92. Bulgarian Vanya Stambolova, who finished second, was not helped even by the national record - 53.82. Let us remind you that Russian Evgenia Isakova, who won the previous European Championship at this distance, completed it in 53.93. Feel, as they say, the difference.
Equally overwhelming was the advantage of the leader of the 2010 European season, Maria Savinova, in the 800 m race, who stopped the stopwatch at the finish at 1:58.22. Yulia Zarudneva shed balm on the soul of Russian fans of the queen of sports, who won a magnificent victory at a distance of 3000 m with obstacles and managed to get ahead of the host of the competition, 2009 world champion Marta Dominguez. Without further ado, Yulia took the lead from the very first meters, setting a pace that only the most experienced Spaniard was able to maintain. Until the very last hurdle, Dominguez made no attempt to take the lead, hoping for her famous finish. But this time he let her down: the Russian woman responded to the breakthrough made by the world champion in the last meters of the distance with an equally impressive acceleration and managed to retain the lead. The champion's time is 9:17.57. The Spaniard lost to her by 17 hundredths of a second. Another participant in this race, Lyubov Kharlamova, won the bronze medal (9.29.2).
In the absence of Elena Isinbayeva, the pole vault section was dominated by Svetlana Feofanova, who needed just five jumps to win with a European season's best score of 4.75. This is Svetlana’s second victory at the European Championships: the first time she stood on the podium was in 2002 in Munich. Then, let us remind you, a jump of 4.60 was enough for her.
The silver medalists were hammer thrower Tatyana Lysenko (75.65) and marathon runner Nailya Yulamanova (2:32.15). Bronze went to 200m runner Alexandra Fedoriva (22.41) and marathon runner Dmitry Safronov (2:18.16). Dmitry’s success should be especially highlighted, since even the old-timers don’t remember, since this is our first award at a distance of 42 km 195 m since Russia competes as a separate team.