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| The Russian men celebrate victory at the Torun 2011 European Cup Combined Events Super League. The Russian women also won their event. |
(Note: women’s points have been corrected)
Russia got a historic double victory at the European Cup Combined Events Super League when they won both the men’s and women’s team competitions in the Polish city of Torun on Sunday.
It is the first time that Russia has managed to finish first in both events simultaneously and it is only the third time in the last 20 years - following Germany’s double triumph in 1996 and 2002 – that such a feat has been achieved; in the era after the landscape of European Athletics changed following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the unification of Germany.
However, both competitions were relatively close.
The three Russian scorers – Vasily Kharlamov, Aleksandr Tabala and Andrey Demyanov, who were second, fourth and 11th respectively - all had good second days and collectively scored 23305 points.
Defending champions and overnight leaders Estonia finished second with 23095 points to their name.
The Russian women, helped by having the individual winner Anna Bogdanova, fulfilled their status as favourites and regained the title they last won in 2006 with 17816 points but they were pressed surprisingly hard by their neighbours Ukraine, who finished 216 points behind them.
Defending champions France were third this time with 16992 points.
Estonia’s Andres Raja and Russia’s Anna Bogdanova took the individual honours, winning the decathlon and heptathlon with totals of 8114 and 6225 points respectively.
Raja lead after five events with 4255 points at the end of Saturday and a lead of 188 points over Ukraine’s 20-year-old Vasyl Ivanytskyi and the Estonian consolidated his pole position when he ran the fastest 110m hurdles in 14.01, more than half-a-second faster than anyone else.
Ivanytskyi slipped from second to sixth when he could only manage 15.46 and Belarus’ Aliaksandr Korzun moved up to second place after his run of 14.59.
Raja then tossed the discus out to a personal best of 43.80m, with Tabala leading the way with 47.03m, and the Estonian followed up his string of good performances when he went over 4.60m in the pole vault, an event won by Czech Republic’s Frantisek Stanek with 5.20m.
Sending the javelin out to 59.93m kept Raja in the lead but with a lifetime best total at stake, he pushed himself as hard as he could in the 1500m but could only clock 4:50.22, more than 12 seconds outside his best, and finished a frustrating five points adrift of his personal best for the decathlon.
Kharlamov was second with 7935 points, after finishing Saturday in fourth, while France’s Gael Querin ran a stunning 1500m in 4:10.47 to move up into third place after the very last event.
Bogdanova finishing 241 points ahead of Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Yosypenko, and was never anywhere but in first place throughout the second day, after starting Sunday with 3732 poin