Moscow - Isinbaeva 4.80, Pyrek 4.60, Shvedova 4.50

[BruceFlorman]

At the "Russian Challenge" this afternoon in Moscow:

Results from here (select the "Прыжки с шестом" tab).

Code: Select all

                       400 420 440 450 460 470 480 495
1 ISINBAEVA, Yelena    -   -   -   -   o   -   o   xxx
2 PYREK, Monika        -   -   xo  xo  xo  xxx
3 SHVEDOVA,Anastasia   o   o   o   xxo xxx
  KAKOSHINSKAYA, Alina xxx

It doesn’t appear to have been a particularly exciting battle, unfortunately. The format of this year’s “Russian Challengeâ€Â

[BruceFlorman]

Regarding the meet format, it looks like there were a couple of surprises. The men’s high jump was billed as a duel between Yaroslav Rybakov and Tomasz Janku, but both under-performed (2.27 and 2.20) and the event was won by Andrey Tereshin (2.30). Similarly the men’s shot was supposed to be a duel between Christian Cantwell and Dan Taylor, but neither threw very well (20.15 and 20.29 respectively) and were both beaten by Anton Lyuboslavskiy (20.41) and Pavel Sofin (20.33).

[BruceFlorman]

Just a real short excerpt tonight from a larger article from Yesterday's Спорт-Экспресс by Yelena Rerikh and Lina Kholina about Sunday's "Russian Challenge" meet in Moscow...
[quote]The last sportswoman remaining in the stadium was the famous Yelena Isinbaeva, who having already won the competition attempted to overcome 4.95. In spite of the enthusiastic support of the spectators, the world record-holder was unsuccessful. Consequently Isinbaeva won the tournament, as almost no one doubted, with only two jumps - at 4.60 and 4.80. “It’s possible that I didn’t make 4.95 today because I literally flew in the day before from London, where by the way, I was close to withdrawing from the tournament. I had [food] poisoning and felt very badly,â€Â