“Great sporting performance”: what did the Russians say after the eighth day of the World Athletics Championships

“I didn’t deal with the rivals, but the weather got the better of them”

After the eighth competitive day of the World Athletics Championships in Doha, the Russian national team, flying the neutral flag, came in fifth place in the overall standings of the tournament. The next medal in the piggy bank of the national team was brought by the walker Vasily Mizinov, who won silver in walking for 20 km.

The 21-year-old Russian confidently went the distance, already from the first kilometers entrenched in the twenty strongest. Evenly distributing forces, he gradually approached the leaders, leaving behind one opponent after another. Before the final stretch, he took sixth position, but then made a breakthrough and came to the finish line second, losing to the leader of the season Japanese Toshikazu Yamanishi 15 seconds. The third line was taken by the Swede Perseus Karlström.

“The main thing was not to start quickly. You can’t add along the way, everything must be done smoothly. I tried to do so, especially after the turns, so that there was no difference in the expenditure of energy, ”TASS quoted Mizinova as saying.

Athletes had to fight not only with rivals, but also with weather conditions. Competitions in walking were held at night, but this did not save their participants from the heat. Even in the dark, the air temperature in the capital of Qatar reaches 30 ° C. According to the Russian, this was the decisive factor in the final distribution of seats.

“Yes, I’m the ninth in the ranking, but I didn’t have to focus on him, because we have all the best results shown under good weather conditions. Not the fastest wins right there, but the one who is friends with the head and more hardy. I didn’t deal with the rivals, but the weather got the better of them, ”said the walker.

Mizinov also spoke about an interesting ritual that helps him to feel more confident at a distance. Before the start of the competition, he wrote on the insole of his shoes the desire to take a place from the first to the third, and also indicated the preferred travel time of 20 kilometers.

“The result indicated a cosmic one that corresponds to the 18th kilometer of the distance, so I didn’t guess a little over time,” admitted the walker, for whom this award was the first at the world championships in athletics.

“There was a real fairy tale in the sector”

Two more medals on the eighth day of the tournament were won by Russian high jumpers. Mikhail Akimenko became the silver medalist, and Ilya Ivanyuk - bronze. The head coach of the athletics team Yuri Borzakovsky praised their performance, emphasizing that Qatari Mutaz Essa Barshim rightfully took first place, while both Russian athletes dared to show him decent resistance.

“Today in the sector there was a real fairy tale, a magnificent sports performance, where our guys were one of the main characters. What they showed today is fantastic, both managed to perform to the maximum, broke their personal records, ”said the mentor.

At the same time, Akimenko noted that he was not completely satisfied with his result. He admired Barshim, who won the World Cup after a serious ankle injury, which he received last summer and almost stood for his career.

“He’s great, a strong guy. After Barshim jumped 2.37, he realized that if I did everything right, as my coach Yevgeny Zagorulko said, I could jump. And I did wrong, ”complained the silver medalist.

The athlete admitted that he lacked the tips of a mentor who did not receive admission to the competition from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). He suggested that the presence of Zagorulko would help him compete for the gold medal.

Interestingly, Akimenko’s arrival in Doha was also in doubt, since until recently he had no right to speak at international competitions. The current World Cup was his first tournament of this level in four years.

“What are the sensations? Good - well made, sort of. But, to be honest, I did not expect to be here. Admission was given at the very last moment, so I was determined to go home and rest already. I trained, but already in the economy mode and did not prepare for the World Cup, ”the jumper added.

In addition, he expressed dissatisfaction with the existing anti-doping system, which, in his opinion, should become more transparent. As an example, he cited the admission to the competition of an American Christian Coleman, in respect of whom a trial was opened in connection with the passage of three doping tests.

“Russia is immediately destroyed, but America has found some moves, all this is strange. If you conduct this work, it’s open, and not so that you can’t even record your doping test on video, how you seal it. There is no openness, it is very bad, ”Akimenko said.

According to him, the subjective attitude of the IAAF to the Russian high jumper Danilo Lysenko, who was disqualified for a similar violation, could cost him a career.

“Dania is my good friend, we have been closely communicating with him since 2014. I support him, he is now in an incomprehensible situation. They ruined a very talented guy who could jump today on a world record. I hope that she can still, ”concluded Akimenko.

Dissatisfaction with the situation in which Russian athletes are forced to speak, Ivanyuk also expressed. According to him, he does not feel that he is taking part in official competitions.

“It is as if we arrived at a good commercial start, we are acting in a neutral form. Now I will have the World War Games, where I can play under the Russian flag, which encourages and adds responsibility. Here you speak for yourself, the state does not demand anything from us - we go out and speak out, if we could not show good results, then there are no special questions. We are kind of a team, but officially we are not, that’s such nonsense, ”the bronze medalist of the World Cup shared his opinion.