Posted: June 30, 2006

Athletics: Russian Women Dominate At European Cup Super League

From David Monti

© 2006 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

France Wins Closely Contested Men's Competition

By Bob Ramsak

The Russian women's squad dominated not only the distance events, but just about everything else as well, to win their 10th SPAR European Cup title in Malaga, Spain, on Wednesday and Thursday.

As expected, Russian women dominated the two-day event, winning 10 of the 20 events en route to a record 155 point tally, a massive 44 1/2 points ahead of runner-up, Poland. In a fiercely-contested men's team battle that wasn't decided until the final event, France won its second continental team title by a narrow two-point margin over Russia.

In primarily tactical affairs, Russian women won four of the five middle & long distance events: Yuliya Chizhenko won her first 1500 outing since capturing the world indoor title in March; Svetlana Klyuka, second to Chizenko at the national championships, won the 800; Liliya Shobukhova, world indoor silver medallist at 3000m, won the 5000; and Yelena Sidorchenkova followed up her runner-up finish at the national championships with a win in the steeplechase.

The lone non-Russian to cross the line first in the distances was Briton Jo Pavey, who defeated Olesya Syreva in the 3000 by nearly six seconds in 8:52.54. Her victory wasn't nearly enough for the British squad, however, who wound up seventh (85 points), making their promotion to the Super League last year a short-lived one. Sweden (81) and Romania (76.5), eighth and ninth respectively, also descend to the First League.

Spanish men won three of the men's middle & long distance events, while Ivan Heshko and Sergiy Lebid took the other two for Ukraine. Heshko, the world indoor champion in the 1500, won his specialty in a tactical race over Spain's Juan Carlos Higuero on Day 1 and came back on the second day to finish second in the 800 behind Juan de Dios Jurado, to win male athlete of the meet honors. More importantly, his 17 points ensured that Ukraine, its first appearance in the Super League since 2002, remained in the continent's premiere division.

“Hopefully we have shown everybody, not just at home but across the rest of Europe, that Ukrainian sport is not just about football," said Heshko, referring to the suprise Ukrainian soccer team that takes on Italy tonight (30 June) in the FIFA World Cup quarter-finals. “However, our football team has done better than many people expected at the World Cup and they were a motivation to us. We wanted to show people that we could do as well as them.”

Germany, the defending men's championships, had a distastrous two-day outing, ultimately finishing eighth. They escaped relegation only because Munich will host the Cup next year. Instead, Spain (6th), Italy (7th) and Finland (9th) will descend to the first league in 2007. Despite their success over the longer distances, the Spaniards faltered virtually everywhere else.

The European Athletics Association moved the Cup final to its unusual mid-week spot to avoid a conflict with soccer's World Cup, whose schedule included rest days on Wednesday and Thursday. The European Cup also decided which European countries would send individual squads to Athens for the IAAF World Cup in September. For the men, it will be France and Russia, for the women Russia and Poland.

MEN -
Teams; 1. France 118; 2. Russia 116; 3. Great Britain 109; 4. Poland 107; 5. Ukraine 103; 6.Spain 99.5; 7. Italy 93; 8. Germany 86.5; 9. Finland 65.

800m (29):
 1. Juan de Dios Jurado, ESP  1:46.00  
 2. Ivan Heshko, UKR          1:46.24  
 3. Florent Lacasse, FRA      1:46.44  
 4. Dmitriy Bogdanov, RUS     1:46.66  
 5. Grzegorz Krzosek, POL     1:47.20  
 6. Rene Herms, GER           1:47.53  
 7. Richard Hill, GBR         1:47.59  
 8. Andrea Longo, ITA         1:48.29  
 9. Mikko Lahtio, FIN         1:49.19   PB 

1500m (28):
 1. Ivan Heshko, UKR                  3:50.34  
 2. Juan Carlos Higuero, ESP          3:50.85  
 3. Aleksandr Krivchonkov, RUS        3:51.96  
 4. Miroslav Formela, POL             3:52.03  
 5. Stefan Eberhardt, GER             3:52.03  
 6. Andy Baddeley, GBR                3:52.27  
 7. Christian Obrist, ITA             3:52.52  
 8. Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad, FRA  3:53.66  
 9. Jonas Hamm, FIN                   3:57.89 

3000m (29):
 1. Sergio Gallardo, ESP    8:27.78 SB 
 2. Mohammed Farah, GBR     8:27.91  
 3. Driss Maazouzi, FRA     8:28.64  
 4. Jan Fitschen, GER       8:30.12  
 5. Sergiy Lebid, UKR       8:30.80  
 6. Sergey Ivanov, RUS      8:31.12    
 7. Yared Shegumo, POL      8:31.61  
 8. Cosimi Caliandro, ITA   8:32.35  
 9. Jonas Hamm, FIN         8:36.67 

5000m (28):
 1. Sergiy Lebid, UKR            14:16.83  
 2. Juan Carlos de la Ossa, ESP  14:17.65  
 3. Sergey Ivanov, RUS           14:18.14  
 4. Khalid Zoubaa, FRA           14:19.45  
 5. Chris Thompson, GBR          14:20.26  
 6. Arne Gabius, GER             14:25.33  
 7. Stefano la Rosa, ITA         14:31.76  
 8. Michal Kaczmarek, POL        14:51.61  
 9. Jussi Utriainen, FIN         14:59.92 

3000m S/C (29):
 1. Antonio David Jiménez, ESP   8:25.59  
 2. Vincent le Dauphin, FRA      8:28.77    
 3. Jukka Keskisalo, FIN         8:30.45 SB 
 4. Vadym Slobodenyuk, UKR       8:33.70  
 5. Adam Bowden, GBR             8:34.23  
 6. Filmon Ghirmai, GER          8:35.36  
 7. Andrey Kozhevnikov, RUS      8:36.00  
 8. Radoslaw Poplawski, POL      8:37.30  
 9. Yuri Floriani, ITA           8:54.85 

WOMEN -
Teams: 1. Russia 155; 2. Poland 111.5; 3. Ukraine 99; 4. France 98; 5. Germany 93; 6. Spain 90; 7. Great Britain 85; 8. Sweden 81; 9. Romania 76.5.

800m (28):
 1. Svetlana Klyuka, RUS   2:01.99    
 2. Monika Gradzki, GER    2:04.13    
 3. Mayte Martínez, ESP    2:04.16    
 4. Aneta Lemiesz, POL     2:04.21    
 5. Virginie Fouquet, FRA  2:04.90    
 6. Mihaela Neacsu, ROM    2:07.09    
 7. Therese Ahlepil, SWE   2:08.13    
 8. Rebecca Lyne, GBR      2:11.04    
DNF - Tetyana Petlyuk, UKR

1500m (29):
 1. Yuliya Chizhenko, RUS    4:14.39  
 2. Latifa Essarokh, FRA     4:14.76 
 3. Nataliya Tobias, UKR     4:15.36  
 4. Corina Dumbravean, ROM   4:16.68  
 5. Anna Jakubczak, POL      4:17.09  
 6. Antje Möldner, GER       4:17.95  
 7. Lisa Dobriskey, GBR      4:18.13  
 8. Irene Alfonso, ESP       4:19.68  
 9. Flo Jonsson, SWE         4:20.91 

3000m (28):
 1. Jo Pavey, GBR               8:52.54  
 2. Olesya Syreva, RUS          8:58.27  PB 
 3. Justyna Lesman, POL         9:02.64  
 4. Sabrina Mockenhaupt, GER    9:05.20  
 5. Hanan Farhoun, FRA          9:08.32  PB 
 6. Tetyana Holovchenko, UKR    9:15.09  
 7. Sonia Bejarano, ESP         9:30.07  
 8. Corina Dumbravean, ROM      9:39.26  
 9. Anneli Fransson, SWE        9:45.74  SB 

5000m (29):
 1. Lilya Shobukhova, RUS    16:18.23  
 2. Marta Domínguez, ESP     16:25.21  
 3. Nataliya Berkut, UKR     16:26.12  
 4. Lidia Chojecka, POL      16:28.47  
 5. Irina Mikitenko, GER     16:30.89  
 6. Kathy Butler, GBR        16:34.75  
 7. Christelle Daunay, FRA   16:42.60  
 8. Adriana Pîrtea, ROM      16:50.00  
 9. Christin Johansson, SWE  16:50.80 

3000m S/C (28):
 1. Yelena Sidorchenkova, RUS   9:45.73  
 2. Rosa María Morató, ESP      9:49.81  
 3. Katarzyna Kowalska, POL     9:56.10  
 4. Élodie Olivarès, FRA        9:57.15  
 5. Ida Nilsson, SWE           10:04.78  
 6. Cristina Casandra, ROM     10:08.08  
 7. Tina Brown, GBR            10:28.26    
 8. Yuliya Ihnatova, UKR       10:30.60  
 9. Birte Bultmann, GER        10:50.03 

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