Saturday 3 February 2007
Samara, Russia - 100 athletes from 12 countries took part in the 13th edition of the Governor’s Cup, and much to the delight of the host in this large city on the Volga River, it was the Triple Jump that took centre stage.
Governor Konstantin Titov, himself an excellent triple jumper whose student record still stands today, was treated to a world season’s best in his former specialty by Cuban David Giralt. In a solid series, the 23-year-old reached 17.39 to win the competition, backed up by 17.37 and 17.23 efforts as well.
His compatriot Francis Betanzos was 2nd with a 17.12 leap with Brazilian Dias Sabino third (16.72), just two centimetres ahead of Ukrainian Evgeniy Semenenko
Strong afternoon for Cuba
Cuban fortunes continued with Virgen Benavides’s narrow victory in the 60m. The fastest in the heats with a 7.31, she duplicated that effort in the final to edge Russian Marina Kislova by a mere 1/100 of a second. Natalya Murinovich was a stride back, finishing third (7.39).
Luis Felipe Meliz Linares made it a Cuban sweep in the horizontal jumps, with his 8.01 winning leap in the Long Jump. Uktaine’s Aleksei Lukashevich reacehd 7.95 to secure the runner-up spot, with his compatriot, Dmitriy Beletzerkovskiy third (7.87). 19-year-old Anton Filatenkov was the best among the Russian jumpers, finishing fourth (7.84).
The men’s 60m was dominated by Canadian veteran Anson Henry who stopped the clock in 6.63, leaving the chasing Russian pair of Aleksandr Zyuzya and Vladimir Toporin – both clocked at 6.78 – well behind.
Lebedeva wins depsite injury
After winning the Long Jump at last Sunday’s Russian Winter meetin, Tatyana Lebedeva indicated that she most likely wouldn’t take part in the Governor’s Cup. But to the delight of the packed and sold-out Samara arena, she didn’t keep her word. But it was Polish jumper Malgorzata Trybanska who took the lead after the first round – her answer to Lebedeva’s 6.62 was the jump 6.63. But Lebedeva, even injured, was gunning for the win. And in the second round she improved to 6.74, enough to seal the victory. She followed with a 6.72 before ending her competition. Trybanska remained in second with Ukrainian Oksana Zubkovska third (6.54).
It’s interesting to note that three jumpers training under the well-known coach Vyacheslav Dogonkin were competing and performed relatively well: Lebedeva won, the experienced Olga Rubleva was fourth (6.52) and another internationally recognized jumper, Oksana Udmurtova, was fifth (6.50).
"I just told Tanya before the competitions to take it easy, Dogonkin said. “She is recovering steadily after her injury but I wanted her to keep in mind that two major competitions of the indoor season are still in store for her, namely the Russian Nationals and the European Championships in England. So Tanya took my advice and won the Cup with less efforts then usual.”
As soon as competition ended, Udmurtova kept going, moving over to the Triple Jump where she finished second (13.62) behind World and European championships medallist Anna Pyatykh, who reached 13.77.
Elsewhere…
Elsewhere, Darya, the younger of the Konzevitch high jumping sisters was the winner with a 1,89 leap, Marina Zafirova won the 400 (53.6), Tatyana Pavliy the 60m Hurdles (8.16) and Lithuanian Rasa Drazauskaite the 1500m (4:22.26). 400m winner Valentin Kruglyakov (48.03) was a crowd favourite, providing the only victory by a Samara resident.
Nickolai Dolgopolov and Rostislav Orlov for the IAAF