The 2023 Russian Championships in Athletics ended in Chelyabinsk. On the last day of the tournament, the athletes gave an excellent fight to the fans, good results and some put on a real show on the track and in the sector. Solid emotions, and it’s great in a situation where our athletes have been living in isolation for eight years.
“Fuck off, run to 13:36!”
On the last day of the tournament, Sergey Shubenkov, champion and multiple medalist of the world championships in the steeplechase, returned to the track. In June, he fell off his motorcycle and broke his left clavicle. He recovered just in time for the Russian Championship, but failed to take another gold.
Shubenkov was late in Chelyabinsk because he did not have time to catch a direct flight from Novosibirsk. I got to the airport late due to traffic jams and finally got through to Moscow. In the semifinals, he showed only the fifth result, but in the final he found himself in the top three, losing to 21-year-old Anatoly Kiselyov from Nizhny Novgorod and Vitaly Parakhonko from Belarus.
Shubenkov fell off his motorcycle and broke his clavicle:
“I allowed myself to take risks.” Sergei Shubenkov fell from a motorcycle and was seriously injured
Kiselev, by the way, showed the result of 13.36 s. – the healthy Shubenkov did not run so fast this season. True, due to the 2.6 m/s wind with a standard up to 2 m/s, Anatoly’s result will not be counted as a personal record. But he remembers this guy for sure. After the finale, they put on a show together with Shubenkov.
While Sergey was giving an interview, Anatoly was dancing for the fans. And then, giving up his place at the microphone to Kiselyov, Shubenkov admonished his colleague: “Fuck you, run to 13:36!”
“This is not me, this is not my result. I run at 1:55 p.m.,” Kiselyov joked. “Actually, it worked. Shubenkov is back, finally! It’s a pleasure to win against him. Of course, I would like him to be fit, not injured… But what’s the difference!
“I messed up and the rain is no excuse”
In the hammer throw, the expected victory went to the 2017 world vice-champion Valery Pronkin. The Hammers began their contest in heavy rain on a slippery, water-filled sector. This stopped some, but not Pronkina. In his first attempt, he threw 77.41 m, and in the fourth he improved this result by 18 cm, but after the end of the competition, Pronkin was darker than the surrounding clouds.
valery pronkin
Photo: RIA Novosti
Polina Knoroz is the champion of Russia in emotions. And in pole vault:
“Hands were shaking, everything was shrinking inside.” In the Czech Republic in athletics, he almost reached the drama
“Of course I’m not happy. He was in perfect physical condition, well tuned. Rain? If you throw, then in any weather you will. I made a mistake. The rain is not an excuse ”, Pronkin did not forgive himself.
Valery was clearly in the mood to shoot in the 80-meter area, but it didn’t work out. It is terrible to think what would happen in such weather conditions with the Pole Wojciech Nowicki, who at the 2019 World Championships received bronze for “moral damage”, showing the fourth result.
Details of the scandalous story with Novitsky:
“Man, aren’t you ashamed?” The ugliest medal of the World Athletics Championships
Almost blind Paralympian takes bronze in a truck
In the 1500m race, the men had a real drama. One of the race favourites, Yevgeny Kunz, fell through the crowd and lost all chance of a medal. Even bronze. And Anton Kulyatin snatched this medal from his rivals with a beautiful powerful finish.
A nearly blind athlete who won gold in 1.5 at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. It was in the collision with Kulyatin that Kunz fell. The achievement of a Paralympian who ran on equal terms with the athletes with no health restrictions is unrealistically great. Kulyatin lost only to Sergei Dubrovsky and Alexei Butranov.
Jump for an encore on the last try
Physically, the last to finish the Russian championship was the high jumper Danil Lysenko. He secured the win for him with a beautiful attempt at 2.27m, but when the challenger was gone, he commanded a height of 2.33m, the Olympic standard. Lysenko met this standard twice already, but once again he decided to show everyone that he is ready to fight the best jumpers in the world after his four-year disqualification.
Danil took this height on the third attempt, when all the fans in the stands came down to the fences and unanimously supported him. Lysenko’s jump turned out to be a feast for the eyes, and if the bar had been at a height of 2.36m (the best result of the season in the world), he probably would have jumped too.
Lysenko from tournament to tournament after his return shows that he is among the elite of world jumping. It is a pity that he cannot perform at international tournaments, like all other Russians.
danil lysenko
Photo: RIA Novosti
Flights of Ekaterina Koneva
The silver medalist of the World Championship – 2013, the world champion – 2014 indoor in the triple jump at the Russian Championships in Chelyabinsk gave simply outstanding series of three jumps in the first three attempts. Each of these jumps would have been victorious, but the second was the farthest – 14.79 m. This is the fourth result of the season in the world.
Ekaterina refused the rest of the jumps, because this was nonsense – all the rivals were far away. After the end of the competition, Koneva calmly accepted the information about her place in the world ranking and said that she needed to take one more leap.
Chelyabinsk hosted a very good Russian championship. Our superstars were out of shape due to injuries, but the main thing is that Maria Lasitskene and Sergey Shubenkov have recovered and are ready to compete again. The championship showed that there are athletes in our athletics who can show good results, although not always at the level of Olympic standards. But the main thing is that these athletes do not cry or sob that they are not allowed to go anywhere, but look for the positive in everything.
Why Lasitskene did not make the list of prize winners in the Czech Republic-2023:
Is it a failure? Olympic champion Maria Lasitskene became only the seventh in the Czech Republic in Chelyabinsk
