Bolshova wins Russian pentathlon title with world-leading 4896 points | 09.02.2012

Russia's Yekaterina Bolshova, who turned 24 last Saturday, continued to make waves this winter when she put together a score of 4896 points at the Russian multi-events championships in Moscow on Tuesday.

It moves her up to number five on the world and European all-time list and is just 95 points short of the world record established by her compatriot Irina Belova 20 years ago.

Bolshova's performance in the Russian capital makes it almost certain she will receive a 'wild card' invitation to compete at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul next month.

There she could do battle with her compatriot and 2011 World Championships heptathlon gold medallist Tatyana Chernova and Great Britain's 2010 European Athletics Championships heptathlon winner Jessica Ennis. Both women have confirmed they intend to go to Turkey.

Bolshova clocked 8.41 in the hurdles, went over an excellent 1.92m in the high jump, threw 13.79m in the shot put, reached 6.45m in long jump and finished off her outstanding day with an impressive 800m run 2:10.60.

She got personal bests in all five events and improved on her pentathlon best of 4745 set only a month ago in her home city of St Petersburg.

Second in Moscow was the 2009 European Athletics U23 Championships heptathlon silver medallist Olga Kurban, who produced an outstanding personal best of 4792 points (8.45 - 1.86m - 14.68m - 6.34m – 2:13.44) for the number two performance in the world this year.

However, with only two athletes per country allowed in an event at the World Indoor Championships, Kurban's only chance of going to Istanbul is if either Bolshova and Chernova are unable to compete.

Third was 20-year-old Kristina Savitskaya, who was only seventh in the 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships heptathlon but made a huge step forward with a total of 4590 points (8.37 - 1.86m - 14.61m - 6.14m - 2:24.60).

Artem Lukyanenko took the men's heptathlon title with a personal best of 6071 points, the third best result in the world this winter: 60m – 6.99, long jump - 7.26m, shot put - 15.05m, high jump - 2.06, 60m hurdles – 7.97, pole vault – 4.80m, 1000m - 2:44.94.

In addition to an overall personal best, he performed better than ever before in six of his seven events, the only exception being the 60m hurdles.

However, he was pressed all the way by Vasily Kharlamov, who finished second with 6043 points, to improve on his two-year-old personal best by eight points. The 2011 World University Games decathlon gold medallist had individual marks of: 7.08 - 7.30m - 15.75m - 1.94m - 8.25 - 5.20m - 2:44.36.