Half-milers please the crowd with heated competition, fail to produce fast times

A new champion has emerged in the women’s 800 m – meet Yekaterina Puzanova from a small town of Vyksa. She started off by sprinting away from the reigning outdoor champ Svetlana Cherkasova in the heat, and did it again with even higher confidence in the final, winning in a time of 2.01,42, her indoor PR (600 m in 1.31). Last outdoor season, her best time was only a whisk faster - 2.01,29. While the winning performance is a step up for the fast-maturing Puzanova, it is definitely alarming in the big picture of Russian middle-distance running, especially in the retrospective of the latest 1.56-1.57 showings in Ghent. It was certainly disappointing to see Cherkasova, our 800-m leader, not being able to reach high levels of performance this season, the fact that was further highlighted in Volgograd by her losing to Puzanova and Kosenkova and settling for third place.


Dmitriy Bogdanov displayed a daring style in the men’s 800 m race, taking the lead at the 300 m mark and holding on to it until the finish line. His time, however, was not nearly as thrilling – 1.48,57 (400 м - 54,4, 600 м - 1.21,4)