Russia meets its Euro target before the halfway mark

By John Bagratuni Aug 11, 2006, 10:21 GMT

Gothenburg, Sweden - Not even half of the events have been contested but Russia have already met their target at the European athletics championships.

Russia commands the medal table after 22 of 47 events with 20 medals: seven gold, eight silver and five bronze medals. That is just shy of the 8-8-8 haul from the full 2002 Euro event and matches exactly the 7-8-5 finish at last year's world championships in Helsinki.

'Look! Look!' head coach Valery Kulichenko reportedly said on Thursday when looking at the medals table - Russia having 15 more medals than Spain (1-2-2) and four golds more than France (3).

Observers were left wondering whether Kulichenko had really been 'completely realistic' or not rather a master of understatement when he made his championship prediction on August 3.

'Our plan is to win six gold, six silver and six bronze medals, and win the first team placing overall. If we won 20 medals in the world championship then why not 18 here?' he said.

The famous 1952 medal haul of the Soviet Union (16-11-8) will likely not be reached, but Russia could well improve on its so far best 10-8-7 result from the 1994 edition in Helsinki.

The success so far has been a mixture of favourites delivering and unheralded athletes making the most of the championships.

That showed for instance on Wednesday night, when Russia won three golds from triple jump top favourite Tatyana Lebedeva and the not that highly fancied Yevgeniya Isakova (400m hurdles) and Andrey Silnov (high jump).

'Everything was in place today. My run up, my technique, my speed. It was simply a Russian evening today,' said Silnov.

Athletics is traditionally strong in Russia, but fundings are now better than in the past with for instance the oil industry acting as sponsors.

Many runners train and Moscow - for instance at the new sports complex in the Moscow suburb of Zhukovskiy - and St. Petersburg.

Others like Lebedeva, pole vault world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva and high jump Olympic champion Yelena Slesarenko are based in Volgagrad and benefiting from each other during training and beyond.

'We are all good friends,' said Slesarenko.

The athletes are also earning well these days, which makes them targets for crime, but none of them plans to leave the home country.

Isinbayeva has bodyguards and Lebedeva spent part of her 1-million dollar Golden League jackpot win last year to employ security personnel and improve security at the daycare centre of her daughter.

However, at a time when 100m world record holder Justin Gatlin of the US has tested positive for drugs it is no surprise that the Russian performances are also closely monitored.

There were some raised eyebrows when Inga Abitova raised her personal best by one minute to win the 10,000m on Monday and Isakova also twice ran a personal best en route to the hurdles title.

No Russian athlete has failed a drugs test in Gothenburg, but the ruling body EAA is reportedly debating how the level of drug testing in Russia can be improved.

'There is doubt out there on the track,' said EAA board member and German athletics supremo Clemes Prokop.