What a terrific season it has been for Russian shot putter Yevgeniya Kolodko who earned a silver medal at the European Athletics Championships to match her silver from the London 2012 Olympic Games.
This achievement is even more impressive because Kolodko went through a coaching change at the start of the season.
She is now coached by Anatoliy Bondarchuk, a renowned throwing expert who led Yuri Sedykh to two Olympic hammer throwing gold medals and a world record of 86.74m set in 1986 at the European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, which still stands today.
“This year we just started to work together and it wasn’t easy to make all corrections,” Kolodko told All-Sport news.
It seems that this new relationship is already paying off and if she is able to further improve, Kolodko could position herself as a medal contender at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
“Now we lay our hopes on our long-term teamwork and look forward to even better results for the next indoor season,” she said.
In Zurich Kolodko lost out on gold to Germany’s Christina Schwanitz who will most likely be favoured to defend her title at the 2015 Prague European Athletics Indoor Championships in March.
Kolodko has already confirmed her participation in the Czech Republic and hopes to put an end to Schwanitz's European domination.
On holidays for now, she will resume training in the beginning of October and will spend several months in Canada throughout the winter along with other throwers coached by Bondarchuk.