The 21st edition of the Walking Memorial dedicated to Elena Rodionova, a local athlete who died at the age of 33 in 1988, took place in the indoor facility of UralGUFK in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.
The UralGUFK oval has seen a storm of new personal bests fall.
All the first three classified, both men and women, have improved on the distance of 5.000m indoors and if for men it is the standard one, for women it is quite unusual and the test on 3.000m indoors is preferred.
5.000m indoor men
Victory to Vasiliy Mizinov (RUS) obtained after a slow start to the season.
The athlete coached by Elena Sayko got the time of 19:20.4h which represents the new personal best indoor on the distance (previous of 18:28.5h always obtained in the UralGUFK facility last 6.1.2019)
Second place to Maksim Krasnov (RUS) in 19:28.6h also for him new personal best (previous of 18: 49.3h always obtained in the UralGUFK facility last 6.1.2019)
Third place to Kiril Shutov (RUS) in 19:31.2h also for him new personal best (previous of 18:49.3h always obtained in the UralGUFK facility last 6.1.2019)
The first U20 arrived in fifth place overall, Artem Selin (RUS) woth a mark of 19:51.0h also for him a new personal best (previous of 20.53.37 obtained recently, on 29.12.2019, always in the UralGUFK facility)
5.000m indoor women
Victory to Olga Shargina (RUS) in 21:21.7h new personal best (previous of 22:16.0h obtained on 6.1.2019, always in the UralGUFK facility).
In the past at the Memorial Elena Rodionova only one female athlete, Tatyana Gudkova (RUS) had achieved better times on this distance:
- in 2000: 21: 20.0h
- in 2011: 21: 18.8h
Second place to Anastasiya Taushkanova (RUS) in 21:29.3h which came off only in the final part of the race. Obviously also for her new personal best (previous of 22:02.7h obtained on 6.1.2019, always in the UralGUFK facility),
Third place in Kristina Mavletova (RUS) in 22: 15.9h also for her new personal best (previous at 22: 43.3h obtained on 6.1.2019, always in the UralGUFK facility),
The best U20 was Yuliya Khalilova (RUS) in 23: 10.0h, fifth in the overall results.
In the U18 the 3,000m indoors were held and the winners were
- boys: Dmitriy Gramachkov (RUS) (born on 9.5.2003) in 11:44.2h
- girls: Ekaterina Petrova (RUS) (born 3.5.2004) in 13:15.6h
Also interesting was the performance of a mixed 4x1000m relay which saw the pair composed by Olga Shargina and Yevgeniy Dobrynkin winning in 15:14.7h
The composition of the relay was random, because the teams were distributed as follows according to the previous results: 1st place for men - 6th place for women, 2nd place for men - 5th place for women, and so on.