European 800m champion one year, world champion the next. Marina Arzamasova knows how to stamp her authority over an event.
And now the success of Beijing last summer has been rewarded with her named as the Belarusian female athlete of 2015 for the second time in a row.
One of the difficulties of being a champion is that the rest of the field watch you more and it is can always be harder to win a title again.
But after her brilliant triumph at the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zurich where she won by 0.65 in 1:58.15, Arzamasova ran even quicker at the IAAF World Championships in August to win by 0.09 in 1:58.03.
The defence of her European crown in Amsterdam in July and the Olympics in Rio the following month now await for Arzamasova whose team were honoured in Minsk as her trainer Nataliya Dukhnova won the female coaching award.
The Belarusian male athlete of the year is Aliaksandr Linnik, who ran a national 400m record of 45.43 at the European Athletics Team Championships in Cheboksary in June. He broke a mark that had lasted for more than 30 years.
The male coach award went to Aleksandr Sidoruk, who guides Kanstantsin Barycheuski, while the “Breakthrough of the Year” title was given to Alina Talay, after a 2015 she will never forget.
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In March she won gold in a thrilling 60m hurdles at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Prague and then took bronze at the world championships over the 100m hurdles.
Hammer thrower Alena Sobaleva, who won silver at the at the European Athletics U23 Championships in Tallinn, won the female under-21 title while javelin thrower Aliaksandr Kazlouski won the men’s award in a year where his 73.39m brought him third place at the European Cup Winter Throwing in Leiria.
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