Russians Back from Athletics Championships with 2 Gold Medals
The Russian national team has won two gold medals at the European Indoor Championships in Birmingham, UK. This poor showing is, however, quite natural as Russia’s major stars preferred to stay at home.
The International Association of Athletics Federations earlier gave the green light to those athletes who would prefer to skip the indoor event ahead of summer competitions. As a result, the list of Russians who did not come to Birmingham included the names of Olympic medalists Yelena Isinbayeva, Tatyana Lebedeva, Elena Slesarenko, Olga Egorova, Svetlana Cherkasova, Yulia Chizhenko, Yaroslav Rybakov, Yury Borzakovsky and many others.
With two gold medals, Russia came in fourth in the competition after the UK, Italy and Sweden which brought with their best line-ups to Birmingham.
In the absence of the invincible Yelena Isinbayeva, her long-time rival Svetlana Feofanova cleared the bar at 4.76 meters to win the women’s pole vault. Her teammate Yulia Golubchikov took the silver.
On the last day of the competition, Oksana Zbrozhek was first, clocking 1:59.23 in the women’s 800 meters, ahead of Ukraine’s Tatyana Petlyuk.
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All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 06, 2007
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