Yuriy Borzakovskiy of Russia wins the men's 800m (© Getty Images)
The indoor season in Russia is always launched by the Christmas Holiday tournaments in the cities of Moscow (11 Jan) and Yekaterinburg (7 Jan). Both events are organized by two different clubs with the same name - “Lutch” that means the beam in Russian.
The Moscow tournament was held for the 17th time, and while several Russian stars are missing the winter season altogether because of the natural exhaustion after the Olympic year, nevertheless several good results were registered.
In the indoor Moscow arena named after brothers Znamenskiy, Yaroslav Rybakov cleared 2.30m in the High Jump. The 23-year-old Stanislav Maliarenko was second with 2.23m.
In the men's Pole Vault Pavel Gerasimov was evidently well prepared for his season start clearing 5.70m to leave behind Steve Lewis from Great Britain – 5.60. In this women's event Yulia Golubchikova raised eyebrows by clearing a superb 4.70m with her season opener. She started the competition at 4.30 when all the other athletes were already out and jumped only five times. Her winning result is the best in the world so far this season.
Click on “Golubchikova vaults 4.70m in Moscow” in ‘Related Content’ under the photo to the right of this text to read the original news story
Other winners in the jumping events in Moscow were Yulia Ignatkina with 6.36m in the women’s Long Jump and Yevgeniy Plotnir in the men’s Triple Jump – 16.03m.
The duel between 2004 Olympic 800m champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy and 2008 Olympic 4x400m team bronze medallist Maksim Dyldin over 500m attracted the attention of the audience in Yekaterinburg.
Dyldin, who is the Russian record holder for 500m won the race in 1:01.65 leaving Borzakovskiy only 0.12 seconds behind.
Yevgeniy Borisov won the men's 60m Hurdles in 7.59 sec. His constant opponent Ogor Peremota clocking 7.78 for second.
20-year-old Natalya Popkova set the Russian national record for U-23 at 2000m – 5:52.73.
Andrei Yepishin and Ivan Teplykh clocked 6.80 for the 60m and Mariya Bolikova won the women’s dash with an encouraging 7.27 sec run with Natalya Murinovitch only 0.01 second behind.
Tatyana Veshkurova was the fastest at 300m – 37.50.
Nickolai Dolgopolov and Rostislav Orlov for the IAAF
