Despite the rain, meet records fall at Znamenskiy Memorial

Zhukovskiy, Russia – Despite the occasional rains that dampened part of the afternoon, several meeting records fell at the 50th Znamenskiy Memorial in Zhukovskiy, just outside of Moscow.

The Znamenskiy Memorial is one of a select group of Area meetings at which points can be acquired by athletes to qualify for the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final, to be held on 13-14 September in Stuttgart, Germany.

Many of the highlights were on the infield, topped by the excellent result by World indoor champion Evgeniy Lukyanenko of Russia in the Men's Pole Vault. Lukyanenko set a meet record of 5.91m, a personal best for the 23-year-old, adding a centimetre to the 5.90m with which he captured gold in Valencia. He tried at 6.00m but failed mostly because of the wet sector. Pavel Gerasimov was second (5.66m) and Australian Paul Burgess third (5.56m).

28th in a row for Vlasic

Blanka Vlasic of Croatia won the High Jump without any resistance. Maybe it was the total absence of rivals or the rain that started twice during the tournament that prevented her attempts at improving Stefka Konstadinova’s World Record

Borza coasts to victory

Yuriy Borzakovskiy made the home crowd happy winning 800m in 1:45.40, not bad at all for the beginning of the season. In the women’s race, Olga Kotlyarova was considered to be a favourite, but was only the runner-up (1:59.99) losing to Tatyana Popova who clocked 1:59.60.