Russia's Elena Soboleva poses next to the clock after setting a new World Record in the final of the Women's 1500m during the Athletics World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain, Sunday, March 9, 2008.
Photo: AP, AP
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Soboleva Sets New Record
The squad of Russia battled hard and successfully during the Athletics World Indoor Championships that ended in Valencia, Spain, Sunday. The team equaled the key rival, the United States, in number of gold medals, having yielded a medal in the general total. The world record that Elena Soboleva set in the women’s 1,500m was the brightest event of the championships.
The Russians won 12 medals in the Athletics World Indoor Championships in Valencia - five gold, four silver and three bronze ones, that is a silver less than the U.S. team and the second position in the final medal table. But the Russians were the first in the final placing table, having outscored the United States by 129pts vs. 118pts.
We had only the well-expected pole-vault gold of Elena Isinbaeva at the end of two days, but Sunday with its golden shower was fantastic for Russia.
In the absence of world leaders, Olesya Zykina and Natalia Nazarova were dueling in the 400m final, and Zykina was faster by a hundredth second. As both Zykina and Nazarova ran in the women’s relay of 4х400m, that victory of the team was honorable but hardly surprising.
But other two gold medals might have been particularly pleasing for the coaches. Evgeny Lukiyanenko, 23, won the men’s pole-vault gold, having broken the no-victory trend of the team in this kind of athletics. And two friends, Elena Soboleva and Yulia Fomenko, manifested the truly world class performance, having chosen the one-after-one leading strategy in the 1,500m race. The gold went to Soboleva, who unexpectedly improved her own record of 3,58.05 by 0.34 second.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 11, 2008
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