The Russian women's team won the World Cup in Athletics, held this weekend in the Greek capital. Thus, the team confirmed its leadership status, won during the last Cup in 2002. In the men's competition, the best team was Europe, which did not win since 1981.
World Cup is the oldest world athletics tournament. He played out in those days when there was no World Cup, - since 1977. The first world forum was held six years later. World Classics is performed every four or two years. In the current regulations, competitions are held in 20 disciplines in two disciplines - both for men and women. Nine teams are allowed to participate.
The organizing country gets a guaranteed place, the obligatory participants are also the teams of the USA, the rest of America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Europe at each tournament is represented by six teams - four (two men and two women) national teams that won first places in the European Cup, plus two directly European teams, made up of the strongest athletes from other countries of the continent.
The World Cup is very attractive financially - its total prize pool is almost three million dollars. The winner in each discipline puts 30 thousand in his pocket. Given various bonuses, the reward can be comparable to the prize for a world title, estimated at 50 thousand dollars.
This year, both Russian teams had a unique chance to excel. For the first time in recent history, the men's team joined the women's team at the World Cup. In June, in Malaga, our guys almost won the European Cup, but lost to the French a little.
Vodka to the detriment
Perhaps, in the Russian team, the victory was most needed for the hurdler Yulia Nosova-Pechenkina. The 2005 World Champion missed almost the entire season. In early summer, her thigh muscles became ill. Barrier decided to eliminate the problem at her own risk with the help of vodka compresses. However, they only exacerbated the injury - for the whole summer, an athlete from the Moscow region was cut off from a normal sporting life. It was possible to recover only by the September “Call of Russia”, a convincing victory in which guaranteed her a ticket to Athens.
“It was a difficult victory,” she will say after the finish. Indeed, she managed to take the lead from the American Lashinda Demus only at the penultimate barrier of the distance of 400 m and finish with a result of 53.88.
In total, the women's team of Russia has five first places. They accounted mainly for experienced athletes, Olympic champions and world champions: Tatyana Lebedeva (triple jump, 15.13 m), Elena Isinbayeva (pole, 460 cm) and Elena Slesarenko (height, 197 cm). The recent European champion Lyudmila Kolchanova (length, 6.78 m) also surprised the season. True, the results of all, with the exception of Lebedeva, are below the grandmaster level, but victory is important here.
Where is the promised record?
It seemed that Andrei Epishin was so confident in himself that the series of Russian achievements in the world sprint was to continue in Athens. Moreover, the trainers assured: we are setting up the recent winner of the World and European Winter Championships to overthrow the record of Valery Borzov. Say, at the September World Cup he should have enough strength to run 100 meters faster than 10.07.
However, Andrei failed to lose three tenths of a second from his personal achievement, established last month. His result - 10.27 - pulled only in seventh place. “Not enough strength,” Epishin admitted. - But in the relay the Russian team looked very good. Being fourth in such a company is not a shame. ”
In Athens, the Russians failed to defeat anyone. Four fell into the prize-winners: Andrei Silnov (high jump), Pavel Sofin (shot put), Ilya Konovalov (hammer throw) and Alexander Ivanov (spear throw). The scores were enough only for sixth place, but, frankly, no one expected more from the Russian men's team.
The end of the hegemony of Africa, which won the men's World Cup the last four times, put the European team. This is the second victory in the history of Europeans. The first was in 1981.
Two cups in one hand
Oddly enough, the world leader - the US team - in both the men's and women's tournaments did not often become the owner of the World Cup. Of the ten draws, the men's team won three, the women's - only one. Metamorphoses happened to the US team this time. At the last moment, Olympic champion Marion Jones refused to travel to Athens. She was included in the team as the winner of the June championship of the country. However, the successful season, Jones was interrupted in July, after the first doping test gave a positive result.
Waiting for the results of the second analysis took three weeks, and this knocked the runner out of the rut - she had just moved away from the scandal with the Los Angeles chemical laboratory. And although the test gave a negative result, the runners went down the drain all season.
"I voluntarily refuse to travel, because I always thought that if you are not ready, then you should not speak," - with these words, Jones opened the way to Athens for a friend at the command of Torrey Edwards. That, however, turned out to be a poor substitute for Jones, losing to season leader Sharon Simpson, who played for the American team, - 11.19 against 10.97. By the way, Jones ran faster than the winner this season.
True, the US team showed its best side. Specialist in the 200 and 400 meters run Sanya Richards won both her favorite distances. Moreover, in the circle she updated the national record, which stood for 22 years. Now it is equal to 48.70. Richards ran in one breath and 200 m in 22.23. The same miracle - to win twice in Athens - except for her, only Saif Saeed Saheen Shahin, who represented Asia, who won the 5000 m race and then in his crown steeple chase, could create it.
At this, the official athletics season is over. A commercial tournament in Yokohama may be interesting. But everyone will solve their personal problems there, because in a year the World Cup will be held in Japan.
Athletics World Cup. Athens
Men
1. Europe-140. 2. USA - 136. 3. Africa - 116. 4. Asia - 110. 5. America - 104. 6. Russia - 89. 7. France - 79. 8. Oceania - 78. 9. Greece - 44.
Women
1. Russia - 137. 2. Europe - 128. 3. America - 117. 4. USA - 101.5. 5. Poland - 97. 6. Africa - 96.5. 7. Asia - 85.5. 8. Oceania - 73. 9. Greece - 60.5.
Tatyana Milevskaya