Action from the women's hammer competition (© Getty Images)
Throws and jumps provided the highlights of the Russian Youth championships in the three-day competition which came to an end in Smolensk on Thursday (25), the final stop for nation’s best athletes in this category before next month's IAAF World Youth Championships in the Colombian city of Cali.
Hammer thrower Sofiya Palkina confirmed her good shape and won with 71.54m, the third best competition of her career, only centimetres shy than her world-leading mark and personal best of 71.68m set in Adler back in February.
This will make Palkina the clear favorite in Cali as no other girl in the world has yet thrown over 70 metres this season.
The silver medalist in the high quality competition was Anastasiya Borodulina, who produced an effort of 67.76m and now is second on the world list.
On the men's side, Danila Danilov was the clear winner with 78.01m throw, almost 15 metres better than anyone else.
Two athletes managed to improve the national record in the girls' javelin. Anna Adyseva was leading the competition with her first round 54.62m until Valeriya Kuchina threw 54.68m with her final throw.
Both athletes improved on the previous record of 54.54m, set in 2012 by the reigning world junior champion Yekaterina Starygina.
Valeriya Nikonova, coming from the same training group with the 2014 world junior champion Alyona Lutkovskaya, repeated her recent personal best of 4.00m to win the pole vault.
After starting her competition nervously and needing three attempts to clear her opening height of 3.40m, in the end Nikonova was the only girl to jump 4.00m.
In the men's event, Denis Akinshin confirmed his medal potential for Cali and jumped a personal best of 5.20m.
Presnyakova improves 14cm
Alisa Presnyakova won the girls’ high jump with 1.84m. She had an amazing competition; up to and including 1.84m she did not have a single failure and made seven successful jumps in a row before failing at 1.86m, improving her best before the championship by 14cm.
Tatyana Ermachenkova also cleared 1.84m but had to settle for second place on countback.
Polina Lukyanenkova was the only one to go over six metres in the long jump, producing a personal best of 6.10m on her third attempt.
Worthy of note, Viktoriya Gorlova leapt 5.81m for second place and is just 14.
On the men's side, the long jump title went to Yevgeniy Timofeyev, whose best attempt reached 7.34m.
Alisa Kuznetsova went over 13 metres for the first time in the triple jump with a best of 13.04m,
Yekaterina Alekseyeva, who finished seventh at last year’s at the Youth Olympic Games, secured an easy win over 400m in 55.21.
Alekseyeva is also currently third at the world lists over 800m but in Smolensk she decided not to make an attempt to double and, in her absence, the title over two laps went to Anzhelika Zavarzina in 2:09.66.
Yuliya Likhacheva took the national title over 3000m, taking almost 10 seconds off her previous best and winning by almost 10 seconds, crossing the line after a solo run over the final laps in 9:43.96.
Likhacheva later was close to a double as she clocked 4:30.84 in the 1500m and only missed her second gold medal by 0.79, losing out to Kseniya Kostyleva.
Anastasiya Makhrova won the 2000m steeplechase in a personal best of 6:47.80.
Natalia Maryanchik for the IAAF
