Athlete Spiridonova conquered a height of 2 meters and cheered up Olympic champion Lasitskene

Alive or not? Will he find the strength to survive or not? What is there in the future when the present is in isolation? You can still ask these questions now. Or you can look at how the Russian winter athletics championship just took place. The one who is still alive and finds strength. Two meters taken in the women’s high jump sector! And Olympic champion Maria Lasitskene is not the author.

If you run through the key results, it will look something like this: Danil Lysenko won the high jump with the best result of the season in the world. Natalya Spiridonova entered the top 3 world results in a similar women’s sector. In the pole vault, the best results were shown by Polina Knoroz, the athlete won at all competitions of the season, and Belarusian Matvey Volkov. In running, two national records were set among juniors under 23 years old by Konstantin Krylov – at 60 meters and at a distance of 200 meters, Kristina Makarenko won another victory at 60 meters… In general, there were a lot of personal records.

The third day of the national championship made me talk emotionally about 21-year-old Natalya Spiridonova. No, Olympic champion (the only one, by the way, in the entire composition of participants in the Russian championship) Maria Lasitskene again entered the high jump sector. And, having jumped 1.93 meters, she even took a step forward in her battle this season, which started difficult and not at all from Maria’s usual heights (the athlete’s personal best indoors is 2.05 meters). But she remained second (sharing this place with Daria Slepova, who set a personal record). When Maria was already giving an interview, the grandmaster height of 2 meters was sensationally taken in the sector.

It was unexpected. The heroine of the day will say so herself: she didn’t expect, didn’t think, didn’t plan. This probably needs confirmation now. Because the bar is set at a height that has yet to be maintained. But breakthroughs do not happen by chance. And this one was expected: when will competition at world heights appear in our women’s high jump sector?

As they always said, Olympic champions Anna Chicherova and Maria Lasitskene? Something like this: jumping two meters always requires enormous strength. And there must be colossal readiness to perform at this level literally with your eyes closed. That’s how they performed themselves. And no one else in Russia has ever risen to such a height. So Spiridonov will now be the third, jumping to where many cannot reach at all.

That’s what Lasitskene said, sincerely rejoicing at her colleague’s success: for every high-altitude climber, two meters is “a miracle height, very important, I can imagine Natasha’s emotions, I’m very happy for her and her coach.” And she immediately noted: “competition in the sector is super, it spurs us all on to the new season.” She also admitted, although it was clearly obvious, that the result shown by Spiridonova actually “cheered herself up.”

This two-meter height (and higher) in recent years has been the air territory of only Maria Lasitskene in Russia. And now, when there are no international starts, when isolation was supposed to constantly stifle not only the result itself, but even thoughts about it, Natalya Spiridonova had a breakthrough. But this is very difficult.

“It’s hard when you have to follow how foreign athletes are performing only using your phone,” said, for example, 22-year-old Alexander Solovyov, who cleared 5.77 meters in the pole vault in Moscow. (The jumper came second after Belarusian Matvey Volkov, who achieved the Olympic standard of 5.82. Solovyov already met this standard at the summer national championship in Chelyabinsk.) And, the athlete believes, it’s also not easy to compete for a long time only with your own people, there are not enough new competitors , I want different starts. But we have what we have.

I want different starts, many things are difficult, but it turns out that everything is possible. Natalya Spiridonova’s personal best before the Russian Championship was exactly five centimeters lower. Yes, she had the best result of the season – 1.93. Yes, this athlete is no longer a no-name; last year she won the Russian Championship, and is now a twice champion. And before that, she even managed to capture a piece of international life, for example, she won the World Championships among athletes under 20 years old in the summer of 2021, and was twice a medalist at the European Championships in the same category. But did anyone expect a rise of two meters?.. And this is the third result of the season in the world after the Ukrainian Yaroslava Maguchikh (2.04 m) and the Australian Nicole Olislagers (2.03 m).

“I didn’t expect it and didn’t plan it. When I jumped 1.97 meters, the coach said: “We need to set the bar higher.” We decided and set it to two meters. And then – the bar remained in place, and Natalya tried to understand what happened: “I don’t realize it yet, everything is shaking inside.” And she clutched to her chest the brown bear that was always with her, her talisman, once a gift from her grandfather.

And Maria Lasitskene, according to her, is preparing herself after the second place in the Russian Championship that she should be satisfied with the result. Because this is her best height of the season. Because she “fought and didn’t start whining and snotting after the second attempt at 1.93.” And this is precisely what is most important, when there are “unstable moments” now, when he and the coach are just putting together the jump.

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In the high jump sector at the Russian winter championship, Danil Lysenko remained true to himself – he won, repeating his best result of the season in the world: 2.33 meters. (The second was Ilya Ivanyuk, the third was Nikita Anishchenkov, both showed a result of 2.27 meters, but Ivanyuk won by the number of attempts.)

And this is where the rule of jumping to great heights with “eyes closed” probably comes into play. After returning from disqualification, Danil did not lose a single start. He says that his main motivation is his family. “I understand that we need to show good results, even if there are no international competitions now. I’m sure there will be interesting starts in the summer,” promises Lysenko.

And when asked by journalists whether he could jump even higher at international competitions, Danil answers in the affirmative: in the form I’m in now, I think he could. “I want to show them.”

However, it’s probably better this way: if he shows it to us in the summer, “they” will see it too.