European Athlete of the Year Savinova shines after the rain in Moscow | 12.06.2012
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| Mariya Savinova of Russia won the 800m title at the Moscow Challenge meeting in a time of 1:57.93. |
Savinova's run at the Moscow Challenge meeting was the second best by a European this year. Behind her, the 2011 European Athletics Under 23 Championships gold medallist Yelena Arzhakova ran a personal best of 1:58.28 while 2012 European leader Irina Maracheva had to settle for third with 1:58.71.
In total, nine of the 12 women on the start line went under two minutes.
"I am happy that I improved on my result from Rome (on 31 may) which was my first race of the summer. I think I could have run faster, but why do it when I didn't need to. I still haven't quite lost my 'competition nerves' especially as it was a bit scary during the warm up as the track was still totally wet from the rain," reflected Savinova.
There were some fast times from Russian runners in the women's 400m as well.
This year's European leader Yulia Gushchina ran 50.87 to beat Lyudmila Litvinova, who was second in 51.13.
In a separate race, the evergreen Natalya Nazarova ran 50.78 to come home ahead of the 2011 World Championships 400m bronze medallist Anastasiya Kapachinskaya who clocked 51.17.
Svetlana Shkolina, second on this year's European women's high jump rankings, cleared 1.98m on her second attempt before unsuccessfully trying a personal best of 2.01m. Belgium's 2008 Olympic Games champion Tia Hellebaut was second with 1.92m.
Yekaterina Koneva was the best in the triple jump with 14.36m.
Yelizaveta Grechishinkova won the Russian national 10,000m title in a personal best and European leading time of 31:07.88. Behind her, three other women went under 32 minutes with the 2009 European Athletics U23 Championships gold medallist Natalya Popkova winning a close race for second place in a personal best of 31:55.83. Inga Abitova was third in 31:55.97 and Alina Prokopeva fourth in 31:57.38. The Russian men's 10,000m title went to Yevgeniy Rybakov in 28:35.95.
Natalya Gorchakova won the women's 3000m steeplechase in 9:35.72 while there were also local wins in the men's throws for Maksim Sidorov in shot put with 20.86m and Bogdan Pishchalnikov in the discus with 64.20m, with Hungary's 2002 European discus champion Robert Fazekas second in the latter event with 63.24m.
Aleksandr Brednev was the fastest man in the men's 200m with a personal best of 20.58 while Pavel Trenikhin won the 400m in 45.51.
Foreign guests dominated in the pole vault with Poland's 2010 European Athletics Championships bronze medallist Przemysław Czerwinski getting the verdict over Germany's Björn Otto, with both men clearing 5.60m but the former having fewer failures.
