Sunset in the east

Medals of the Russian Championship in Beach Willing were played out in Primorye

The Russian beach volleyball championship, which has the largest possible geography, has ended in Primorye. The preliminary stages of the national championship took place in Anapa, Smolensk, Maikop, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Obninsk and in the far west of the country, in Kaliningrad, and the medals were played in Vladivostok. It is symbolic that the championship finished in the region of the country where a new day begins. The tournament did not bring any special surprises: among men, the highest awards were received by the winners of two stages of the “World Tour”, vice-champions of the planet 2007, Igor Kolodinsky and Dmitry Barsuk; in women’s competitions, success was also on the side of the couple who constantly defend the colors of the Russian national team - Galina Boyko and Anastasia Vasina won gold.

Since the format of the main draw of the final stage, unlike the previous stages, provided for the participation of 24 pairs, the eight strongest teams were exempted from the matches of the opening round. Kolodinsky and Barsuk, who reached their peak form in the second half of the season, won all five matches, experiencing certain difficulties only in the third round, when they won a strong-willed victory over Alexander Likholetov and Alexey Pastukhov - 16:21, 21:16, 15:5 . In the fight for reaching the semi-finals, our giants defeated Pavel Karpukhin and Evgeniy Romashkin - 21:16, 21:10, then prevailed over their national team colleagues Sergei Prokopyev and Yuri Bogatov (they eventually got bronze) - 21:19 , 21:17, and in the main match of the tournament they left no chance for Konstantin Birlov and Yaroslav Koshkarev - 21:18, 21:15.

In terms of the number of Russian champion titles, Barsuk is now equal to Natalya Uryadova. These masters have five victories each. Together with Kolodinsky, Dmitry climbed to the top step of the podium for the third time in the last four seasons, and before he won with other partners - Alexei Tarantin (2001) and Roman Arkaev (2004).

As for Uryadova, she and her partner Svetlana Popova won three stages of the national championship this year, but in the final the Mytishchi girls could not cope with their teammates Boyko and Vasina - 17:21, 14:21. In the match for bronze, Russian champions of 2007 and 2008 Maria Bratkova and Evgenia Ukolova upset Anna Vozakova and Ekaterina Khomyakova - 21:19, 21:18. For the Obninsk pair that finished in fourth position, such a result before the start of the season could have seemed like an excellent result, but the volleyball players from the Kaluga region from last year's middle peasants quickly rose to become players of the Russian national team, and the lack of medals in Vladivostok certainly upset them. Moreover, they started the 2009 championship with three consecutive victories at the stages in Anapa, Maikop and Smolensk.

Summing up the general results of the championship, one cannot fail to note the sharply increased level of its organization and the popularity of the sport itself. The matches of those stages, in which the strongest couples of the country, free at that time from performing in international competitions, participated, were shown on the 7TV channel, available in many regions of the country. Conditions for participants are being improved, interesting work is being done with spectators, and new forms of attracting fans are being found. An important point: in Russia there are good beach volleyball teams not only in the central and southern regions, but also in Siberia. Thus, one of the stages was won by Andrey Maryshev and Alexey Yutvalin from Novosibirsk, the Tyumen tandem performed in Vladivostok, and Khabarovsk delegated two pairs for the women’s finals.

The VFV Beach Volleyball Council, headed by Andrei Gorbenko, is preparing changes to the regulations for the Russian Championship for the next 2010 season. It is assumed that the stages will be divided into four categories - the Grand Slam series, the regular series, the regional series and the traditional final. It is planned to introduce a team classification and a universal individual rating that takes into account the results of performances not only in domestic tournaments, but also in matches on the world and European tours.

Ilya TRISVIATSKY