Irina Privalova (RUS) - 2000 Olympic 400m Hurdles Champion (© Getty Images)
The Vladimir Kutz Memorial at Luzhniki 1980 Olympic stadium in Moscow, Russia on 10 and 11 July was marked by an unexpected comeback.
Irina Privalova won the Olympic gold medal in Sydney at 400m hurdles. Since then she has given birth to her second child and participated only in minor competitions mainly over the flat 100m sprint.
In Moscow on Thursday (10), Privalova clocked 11.32sec at 100m in what is her fastest time for the dash since 1999, and one which is not bad to say the least for an athlete who turns 40 in November. She was 1992 Olympic 100m silver medallist and a multiple World Champs sprint medallist.
Yuna Mekhti-Zade who came second in 11.38, could be Privalova’s daughter in terms of her age of 22, which puts the extraordinary performance of the winner who was European 100m (1994) and 200m (1994/98) champion into context.
But the best performance of the meet statistically was by World Indoor champion Yelena Soboleva at 1500m, 3:56.59, which is the best result of the current world season.
Elsewhere, Natalya Sadova threw 66.08m in the women’s Discus Throw (Fri 11), while Anastasiya Kapachinskaya ran 50.02 at 400m (Thu 10), the best European time of the summer.
In the men’s division, Andrey Yepishin, the 2006 World 60m silver medallist, returned after the injury to clock 10.18 at 100m, and Yevgeniy Borisov flew over the barriers in the 110m Hurdles in 13.55. The veteran middle distance runner Vyacheslav Shabunin clocked 3:37.99 at 1500m.
The men's Long Jump in Russia is seeing some encouraging signs of improvement. The young Stanislav Ionov produced 8.01m becoming the fifth Russian long jumper passing the 8m mark.
Nickolai Dolgopolov and Rostislav Orlov for the IAAF
