Team Europe: Savinova and Meadows lead women's 800m charge
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| Mariya Savinova of Russia. |
Besides Europe, three other continental teams: Americas (NACAC and CONSUDATLE), Africa and Asia/Pacific (Asia and Oceania), will lay claim to the title of "Continental Champion."
Today, in two parts, we run the rule over Team Europe's female middle distance runners.
800m:
Mariya Savinova (RUS)
Born: 13.8.85
Team/club: Chelyabinsk
Major championships record:
World Championships: 5 2009
European Athletics Championships: 1 2010
World Indoor Championships: h 2008, 1 2010
European Athletics Indoor Championships: 1 2009
Personal best: 1:57.56 (3.7.10)
Season's best: 1:57.56 Eugene, USA, 3.7.10
The 24-year-old from Chelyabinsk just east of the Ural Mountains is developing an enviable championship reputation to add to Russia's rich tradition in the two-lap event.
Savinova, the European outdoor and world and European indoor champion, has won three of the last four major championships she has contested with her only real disappointment coming at last year's outdoor World Championships in Berlin.
Yet success has been a relatively recent phenomenon for Savinova who was a far from stellar junior. The first signs that the Russian could become a hit on the international stage came in 2007 when she improved her lifetime best by more than five seconds with a 2:00.78 clocking in her home city. She made her championship debut at the 2008 world indoors in Valencia, but gave no real indication of what was to come as she exited the heats in Spain.
It was in 2009, though, when Savinova announced herself as a truly world-class athlete. She was crowned national indoor champion in Moscow and then blitzed the field to storm to the European indoor title in Torino in a new lifetime best of 1:58.10.
Outdoors she ran an even quicker 1:57.90, but was a slightly disappointing fifth at the World Championships in Berlin when perhaps a little more was expected of the Russian.
This season, though, has been near perfect. She opened the year by winning the world indoor title in Doha before crushing the field at the European championships with her trademark burst of speed.
She has also set a personal best of 1:57.56 to win at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene to further underline her outstanding credentials.
Jennifer Meadows (GBR)
Born: 17.4.81
Height: 152 cm
Weight: 47 kg
Team/club: Wigan & District
Major championships record:
Olympic Games: sf 2008
World Championships: sf 2007, 3 2009
European Athletics Championships: 3 2010
World Indoor Championships: sf 400 2003, sf 2006, 5 2008, 2 2010
European Athletics Indoor Championships: h 2002, 5 2007, 4 2009
World Junior Championships: sf 400 2000
European Athletics U23 Championships: h 400 2001, 7 400 2003
Personal best: 1:57.93 (2009)
Season's best: 1:58.89 Rome 10.6.10
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| Great Britain's Jennifer Meadows. |
One of the most diminutive athletes on the circuit Jenny Meadows is finally realising her rich potential to develop into one of the most consistent 800m athletes in the world.
Born in Wigan in the North West of England, she started out as a 400m sprinter and claimed a gold medal as a member of Great Britain's triumphant 4x400m team at the 2000 World Junior Championships in Chile.
In 2003, the 1.52m-tall Meadows finished 7th in the 400m at the European Athletics U23 Championships and also competed for Great Britain as a member of the 4x400m squad at the World Championships in Paris.
After struggling to make her international breakthrough in the 400m and failing to make the Olympic team for the Athens Olympics she made a more concerted bid to step up to the 800m in 2005 and slashed more than three seconds from her lifetime best to record 2:02.05.
The steady improvement continued in 2007 when she recorded her first sub-2:00 time and reached the 800m semi-finals at the World Championships in Osaka as well as finishing fifth at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham. She failed to advance beyond the semi-finals at the Beijing Olympics, but made a major breakthrough in 2009.
She recorded a swift 1:58.63 in Monaco on the eve of the World Championships in Berlin and then produced the run of her life in the German capital. Meadows produced a tactically astute performance to time her medal bid to perfection and clinch bronze in a new personal best in 1:57.93.
This season she has lived up to her rising profile by winning world indoor 800m silver in Doha before landing a European bronze in Barcelona, despite an injury plagued build up. She is married to her coach, Trevor Painter.
