Russian athletes began the summer season with the national team championship, which was held in Sochi for two days. Almost all titled athletes came to the tournament, with the exception of Ilya Ivanyuk and Angelica Sidorova. The world champion in pole vaulting this year will not be seen by fans in the sector. Most recently, she announced her pregnancy and is now preparing to become a mother. Moreover, according to the silver medalist of the Tokyo Olympics, this pause in her career turned out to be very necessary for her from a psychological point of view.
In the absence of the world leader, whose personal best is 5.01 m, the competition was won by Irina Mikhailova. In her best attempt, she overcame the bar at a height of 4.45 m.
However, according to Sidorova, you should not be upset about the results, since very young athletes took part in the competition. Elizaveta Bondarenko and Polina Knoroz, who took second and third places, are 23 years old.
"I hope that everything will be fine with us. Girls are growing up. The ones who follow me are one step lower in class, but they are ten years younger than me. We must catch up with me in development. They have everything ahead," Sidorova said in a conversation with Match TV.
Maria Lasitskene is clearly out of shape yet. Moreover, we are talking about both her physical and moral condition. In Sochi, the Olympic champion shared second place with Natalia Spiridonova (1.88), losing to Belarusian Karina Demidik, who managed to overcome the height of 1.91 m.
"In training, he allowed me to jump, it seemed to me that an athlete should always have something hurt and this is normal. But today, on the first attempt at a height of 1.91, I realized: I don't like this pain at all. It is necessary to seriously deal with the Achilles. Therefore, I can't say anything about my plans now. I will show myself to Eduard Bezuglov and the coach and I will decide what to do. Maybe it's my feelings, sometimes you're playing it safe. But I really didn't like what happened. I think there will be a medical examination," Lasitskene said.
At the same time, the Olympic champion of Tokyo is very painfully enduring what is happening in the world. Answering a question about competitions abroad, she even burst into tears.
"My international career is over. Everything has already been decided, no matter what we do, they are not waiting for us there. I don't have any hopes, I'm just not ready to finish my career, I want to jump again," Maria said with tears in her eyes.
In the 110-meter hurdles, Sergei Shubenkov was again unequaled. Moreover, this time he had to work on the track to win. Artem Makarenko bypassed the world champion during the final, and it seemed that the famous athlete was close to his first defeat since 2011 at domestic competitions. But another sensation did not happen: the leader of the national team managed to catch up with the opponent when the obstacles had already ended. The silver medalist was 0.04 seconds behind the winner.
Shubenkov, unlike Lasitskene, fortunately, is in a good mood, he is not going to end his career or pause in connection with what is happening in the world.
"The mood is elated, I got into my native element. And I don't think about international competitions yet. What kind of World Cup do I have? Here you have to suffer, you have to win. But if we are admitted, we will be ready, there is time. I'm going to show good results. I continue to perform as long as I am alive and my legs are intact. I'm definitely not going to miss this season and the next one, and what will happen next, it makes no sense to guess," the athlete added.
High jumper Danil Lysenko is not discouraged either. In the absence of his main competitor Ivanyuk, he easily won the competition with a score of 2.30 m. This year indoors he set a personal best of 2.38, but in Sochi attempts at 2.32 were unsuccessful. However, this turned out to be more than enough to win. Silver medalist Georgy Tarabarov lost to him a lot - 11 cm.
Lysenko, who returned to the sector only last year after a four-year suspension, does not lose hope of performing at the international level.
"Maybe they will be allowed to participate in the World Cup, maybe it will happen later. Now I think only about those competitions at which I will definitely perform. When I'm alone in the sector, I jump even more calmly. Although there was not enough competition. I am sure that at the beginning of June everyone will gather, there will be a real hack in Moscow. I thought that I would jump to 2.32, but I didn't think much," Danil admitted.
VFLA is doing everything to ensure that the dreams of Lysenko and others to return to the international arena as soon as possible come true. And even signed an agreement with World Athletics on April 11 on external monitoring of its activities for a period of three years. This was one of the conditions for the restoration of membership in the organization. However, now everything depends on the recommendations of the IOC: the international federation has not yet announced its criteria for admission to tournaments under its auspices.
So for now, domestic athletes are preparing for the next domestic competitions. Very soon, from 5 to 10 June, the Athletics Week will be held in Moscow.