Russian Athletics

Mikhail Butov

The "prima donna" of  Russian Winter-2010 is, undoubtedly, two times Olympic Champion and 27 times World Record holder in Pole Vault Yeena Isinbayeva. Yelena wants to gladden the spectators with beautiful jumps and good results.

“We are constantly in contact with Yelena, her coach Vitaliy Petrov and her manager Daniel Wessfeldt. We provide comfortable world level conditions for competing not only for Isinbayeva but also for all other participants. Athletes will stay in hotel “Cosmos”, they will be provided with transportation, delicious food, and we always organize social events. Of course we have reliable organizing partners such as Moscow Committee of Sports and the Directory for Sports and Spectacular Events headed by Alexander Polinskiy.”

There are also some changes at the indoor track CSKA, the competition venue for the Russian Winter. It is the main indoor athletic arena in Russia, and this year a new lighting system has been installed and some renovations have been made in the main lobby. This arena will be used for the National indoor Championships on 26-28 February, the championships at which the national team for the World Championships in Doha will be selected.

Russian Winter is deeply honoured to see not only Elena Isinbayeva but also 6 more Olympic Champions: the members of the gold 4x100m relay team at Beijing Olympics Yuliya Gushchina, Aleksandra Fedoriva and Yevgeniya Polyakova; Yuriy Borzakovskiy, 800m Olympic champion in Athens; Wilfred Bungei, 800m Olympic champion in Beijing; Andrey Silnov, High Jump Olympic champion in Beijing.

But there will be many more high class athletes coming from all over the world. In Pole Vault we will see the World Champion and ex-World record holder Svetlana Feofanova, World Championships medallist Monika Pyrek of Poland, indoor European Champion 2009 Yuliya Golubchikova. At 800m – the World champion, silver medallist of Beijing Olympics Janeth Jepkosgei of Kenia; our guest from UK Jennifer Meadows, bronze medallist of the World Championships in Berlin, and the reining European indoor champion Mariya Savinova. In 60m we will see the World Champion of Valencia Angela Williams (USA), and in men’s 60m the World Champion Olusoji Fasuba of Nigeria, in Long Jump all the three medallists of Turin European indoor championships including our guest from Estonia Ksenija Balta will compete; and 400m and 4x400m bronze medallist of the World Championships in Berlin Antonina Krivoshapka.

All the spectators can witness the competition between the silver medallist of Beijing Olympics in 4x400m Tatyana Firova and the World Champion 2009 Debbie Dunn (in Glasgow on 30th January Debbie ran 400m in 53.15). one of the most interesting events will be men’s 600m: world top athletes – Yuriy Borzakovskiy, Wilfred Bungei, 800m silver medallists of Beijing Olympics Ismail Ahmed Ismail of Sudan and the finalist of the World championships in Berlin Ali Belal Mansoor of Bahrain.

In High Jump Andrey Silnov will be competing with the gold medallist of the World Championships-2003 Jacques Freitag ofSouth Africa and American jumper Dusty Jonas who jumped his personal best 2.32 five days ago. Quite an interesting competition is going to be in men’s Long Jump: the World Champion in Triple Jump Walter Davis and the medallist of the World indoor Miguel Pate. In women’s Long Jump we will see the World Championships finalist Olga Kucherenko and the silver medallist of Turin European indoor Elena Sokolova. We are looking forward to high level results in sprint with Mark Jelks of USA, and in hurdles with 110m H European Champion Stanislav Olijar and Yevgeniy Borisov, bronze medallist of the World indoor Championships.

It has not happened for a long time that so many great athletes are coming to Moscow to compete. “The spectators will have to be very attentive not to miss lots of interesting things,” Mikhail Butov says.

The organizers did a lot to invite top level athletes to Moscow, but sometimes invited athletes get injured or have other problems with participation and the organizers react quickly to such situations.
“We had to find a substitution for an Olympic Champion Pamela Jelimo of Kenya. She had agreed to come to Moscow but later her manager informed us that after the training camp in Africa the athlete was not in a good shape and would not show good results at the competition. That was also the reason to cancel her participation in another competition in Dusseldorf on 3rd February.”
And the substitute is the bronze medallist of the World Championships in Berlin Jennifer Meadows (1:57.93). Her first indoor start this year was at the match of five teams in Glasgow and she won easily with the result 2:02.53.

The competition Russian Winter starts on 7th February but the festival of the Queen of Sports will start the day before.

“On 6th February Irina Privalova and Yuliya Pechonkina will host the master class for children, and on 7th February there will be a celebration in honour of these great athletes. And moreover, this year Russian Winter will leave the indoor track for the first time: in the morning in the town of Korolev of Moscow region there will be an unusual and interesting competition – “Running in snowdrifts” (as snowdrifts or huge heaps of snow are traditional for snowy winters in Russia). Everyone is invited to take part.
And on the track just before the main competition program starts the spectators will see the exciting IAAF Kids’ Athletics Competition and the unique race in which children of Olympic and World Champions take part” – Mikhail Butov said.

Russian Winter is open for everyone!