Yekaterina Martynova dominates final day of Russian championships with an impressive 1500m finish
As the four-day Russian championships concluded in Cheboksary, it was Yekaterina Martynova, the middle-distance runner, who, for clocking an impressive four minutes and 1.68 seconds, marked her victory at the final day of the athletics event.
Martynova was among the pre-favourites at the Russian championships, as the athlete has proved her potential in the past. She was the silver medal winner at the 2005 European Junior Championships in Kaunas, where she observed an overawed finish of four minutes
and 15.46 seconds. She was also the third finisher of this year’s European Indoor championships, where she clocked an even improved time of four minutes and 14.16 seconds, which also proved to be her new Personal Best.
The previous PB of the 24-year-old runner stood at four minutes and 4.64 seconds, which she clocked while performing in Sweden. As the race concluded, the second place on the podium was claimed by Yekaterina Kostezkaya, who hit the finishing line in four
minutes and 1.77 seconds. For clocking a four minutes and 2.73 seconds effort, Olesya Syryeva ended up third in the event.
The event also saw some tremendous performances by male runners in the event. The top finisher of the race, Valentin Smirnov, not only impressed the audience by improving his Personal Best, but also left his spectators amused for bagging the event title.
In order to reach the finishing line, Smirnov clocked a three minutes and 36.14 seconds finish. The second position out of the contest was grabbed by a determined Vyacheslav Sikolov, who stopped the clock in three minutes and 36.79 seconds. Egor Nickolaev,
for finishing-off the race in three minutes and 37.84 seconds, entitled himself for a third place on the podium.
After the running events performed by both the male and female squads, the competitions that grabbed major part of viewers’ interest were the men’s and women’s Hammer Throw challenges. On the men’s side, the names which emerged as the top finishers of the
event were comprised of Kirill Ikonnikov, Sergei Litvinov and Dmitriy Velikopolskiy.
Surprisingly, Aleksei Zagorniy, the world leader of the discipline could not place himself even among the top-four finishers and for landing his throw at a length of 75.22m, he left a big question mark on his chances to make it to the Daegu event. On the
women’s side, the top performers of the championships were comprised of Tatyana Lysenko, Oksana Kondratyeva and Mariya Bespalova, as all of them finished-off the competition at the first, second and third positions, respectively.
The results produced at the Russian Championships have been tremendous and on the basis of such formidable performances, the final team will be put together for Daegu. With the current efforts of athletes, Russia can certainly rely on finishing-off at a
respectable place on the medal tally in the mega event.
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