Bogdan Bondarenko, the 2013 world high jump champion and a silver medallist in Beijing just over a week ago, provided the highlight of the famous Palio Citt&agrave; della Quercia meeting in Rovereto with a 2.31m clearance at Italy&rsquo;s oldest meeting on Tuesday (8).However, Bondarenko made the competition seem like hard work. He failed his first attempt at the opening height of 2.21m but then cleared at the second time of asking. After passing at 2.25m, Bondarenko failed twice at 2.28m and then chose to make his final attempt at 2.31m.The Ukrainian star then failed his three attempts at 2.36m, one centimetre higher than Troy Kemp&rsquo;s 2.35m meeting and stadium record set in 1991. &ldquo;It was not bad but I would have been happier if I had cleared 2.36m," said Bondarenko. "I would have managed to jump this height if we had been at the start of the season. I am happy with my silver medal in Beijing but I hoped to win the gold. I enjoy competing in Italy, during the winter I train in Formia. I have one more competition in Warsaw."After his dominant displays during the summer of 2014, his win in Rovereto was actually his first victory in almost three months.Kemp&rsquo;s Bahamian compatriot Donald Thomas &ndash; both men, like Bondarenko, former world champions &ndash; cleared 2.25m to finish second.Qatar&rsquo;s Asian champion Femi Ogunode improved the 100m meeting record to 10.00. The previous meeting and stadium record was held by Keston Bledman, who clocked 10.04 in 2013. French sprinter Christophe Lemaitre edged out Jamaica&rsquo;s Rasheed Dwyer by 0.02 in a close 200m race won in 20.31 into a -0.4m/s headwind. Jamaica's world 4x400m champion and Commonwealth 400m champion Stephanie Ann McPherson got her second consecutive 400m win in Rovereto in 51.62.Fiona Benson from Canada prevailed in the women&rsquo;s 1500m in 4:05.62 over Ireland&rsquo;s Clara Mageean, who was second in 4:06.54. Shane Brathwaite from Barbados won the men&rsquo;s 110m hurdles in 13.43 while Ukraine&rsquo;s Hanna Platytsina took the honours in the women&rsquo;s 100m hurdles in 13.13.Russia&rsquo;s promising 19-year-old Konstantin Tolokonnikov just had the edge over Morocco&rsquo;s Amine El Manaoui in a close finish in the men&rsquo;s 800m, with both men given the same time of 1:46.12. Turkey&rsquo;s Ali Kaya won over his preferred distance of 5000m in 13:25.41.Amber Campbell produced her best throw of 71.52m in the sixth round, the US thrower overtaking Moldova&rsquo;s Zalina Marghieva who took the lead with 71.19m one round earlier. Andrius Gudzius from Lithuania produced his best throw with his second attempt and reached 63.05m to win the men&rsquo;s discus throw.Belarus&rsquo; Natalya Mironchyk-Ivanova took the lead in the third round of the women&rsquo;s long jump with 6.65m and held on to win from Great Britain&rsquo;s Jazmin Sawyers, who was second with 6.49m.Cuba&rsquo;s Alexis Copello won the triple jump with 16.85m while Argentina&rsquo;s German Chiaraviglio, a Beijing finallist, won the men&rsquo;s pole vault on countback with 5.51m over Russia&rsquo;s Ilya Mudrov. Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF

Bogdan Bondarenko, the 2013 world high jump champion and a silver medallist in Beijing just over a week ago, provided the highlight of the Palio Città della Quercia meeting in Rovereto with a 2.31m clearance at Italy’s oldest meeting on Tuesday (8).

Bondarenko back on top in Rovereto

The Russian Championships and trials for the IAAF World Championships later this month were held in Cheboksary and the four-day event, which finished on Wednesday (5), produced several high-quality performances in jumping events. World indoor triple jump champion Lyukman Adams, after struggling during the early part of the season, finally found his form and bounded out in the first round to a season's best of 17.34m, the second-best outdoor performance of his life.World University Games winner Dmitry Sorokin leapt 17.07m to finish second but European champion Aleksey Fedorov has had to call an end to his season after a leg injury sustained at the World University Games in Korea last month. He did not compete in Cheboksary but has told local reporters that although he'll miss the IAAF World Championships, he hopes to be fit for the World Military Games in October.&nbsp; On the women's side, a 14.27m jump was enough for Ekaterina Koneva to take another national title. Her training partner, high jumper and World University Games gold medallist Daniil Tsyplakov, won his event with 2.31m. Tsyplakov faced opposition from Olympic champion Ivan Ukhov. With the bar at 2.31m, Tsyplakov cleared this height on his second attempt which proved to be decisive, while Ukhov decided to skip it. He smashed into the bar on his first jump at 2.33m and had two unsuccessful attempts at 2.35m.<h3>Chicherova the Russian champion again</h3>Olympic and 2011 world champion Anna Chicherova again confirmed her top shape and cleared 2.00m to win the women&rsquo;s national title. World indoor champion Maria Kuchina, who has a wild card entry for Beijing as the 2014 Diamond Race winner, jumped 1.97m. In the absence of pre-qualified Darya Klishina, Yuliya Pidluzhnaya reached&nbsp; a personal best of 6.87m to take the gold medal in the long jump, adding three centimetres to her own best which had dated from 2010. Elena Sokolova, coming back after childbirth, seems to be on the right path to regain her best shape, and was second with 6.70m.In the men&rsquo;s long jump, another World University Games winner, Pavel Shalin, produced a wind-assisted 8.05m leap in the fourth round to win but missed the qualification standard for Beijing. Sergey Polyanskiy, who earlier in the season already fulfilled the standard with 8.20m, was second with 8.03m while Alexander Petrov was third with 8.01m.In the pole vault finals, the gold medals went to the two clear favourites: European champion Anzhelika Sidorova with 4.50m &ndash; her one and only clearance before three failures at 4.65m while her main rival Angelina Krasnova no-heighted &ndash; and Alexander Gripich with 5.65m. Konstantin Tolokonnikov made the headlines in the men's middle-distance events, as the 19-year-old improved his 800m personal best to 1:45.76 and took his first national senior title. Tolokonnikov, who earlier in the season took the silver medal at the European Junior Championships, is definitely worth paying attention to, as he is advised by the current head coach of the national team, 2004 Olympic 800m champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy.The 400m winners were Kseniya Aksyonova (nee Ustalova) in 51.44 and Maksim Dyldin in 46.04. <h3>Antyukh faces race against time</h3>Olympic 400m hurdles champion Natalya Antyukh has a lot of ground to make up before Beijing. In her first competition of the season, she finished third in 56.28, although she was faster in the heats with 55.92. The winner in the final was Darya Korableva, another recent mother, in a personal best of 55.69. In the men's event, European medallist Denis Kudryavtsev did not face any problems and had an easy win in 49.07. There were good performances in the women's 100m hurdles, Nina Morozova was first home in 12.88 and Yekaterina Galitskaya second in 12.92. 2011 world javelin champion Maria Abakumova, back in action in her first season after giving birth to twin daughters last year, finally managed to fulfill the qualification standard when she threw 61.26m but this was still enough only for the silver medal, with the gold going to Vira Rebrik with 64.93m.&nbsp;&nbsp; Abakumova's husband Dmitri Tarabin made it a family affair, adding another national title to his collection, and throwing 84.70m in his first competition after two months out with an injured shoulder.&nbsp;&nbsp; Elsewhere, Maksim Sidorov won the men's shot with 20.58m while Elena Panova threw the dicsus out to 63.22m to become the national champion. Natalia Maryanchik for the IAAF&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Russian championships and trials for the IAAF World Championships later this month were held in Cheboksary and the four-day event, which finished on Wednesday (5), produced several high quality performances in jumping events. 

Jumpers provide the highlights at the Russian championships

Two national records and a team of 38 athletes for the IAAF World Youth Championships was the outcome of the Russian Youth Trials that finished on Sunday (23) in Chelyabinsk. On the first day of competition, 16-year-old shot putter Alena Bugakova set a national record and the second-best performance in the world by a youth athlete with the 3kg Shot. Bugakova added almost two metres to her previous outdoor PB of 17.56m set last month, throwing 19.17m.All six of her attempts were farther than her previous best, and the young Russian managed to throw over 19m twice – 19.17m in the second round and 19.02m with her final throw.&nbsp; It ranks her second in the world this year behind Turkey’s Emel Dereli, who has thrown 19.90m this year – just 62cm shy of Corrie de Bruin’s World youth best. Dereli and Bugakova are the only shot putters to break 19 metres this year.As the 3kg implement only last year became the official implement for youth athletes, Bugakova has confirmed her position as the national record-holder.She has been doing the Shot Put only for a couple of years. She started her career as a swimmer and even became a champion of her native Tver region, which is in the central part of Russia. Shortly after she was spotted at a school lesson by athletics coach Nadezhda Berezutskaya and moved to Moscow to start doing athletics.Bugakova currently combines Shot Put with Discus, where she also won the national youth title with a PB of 47.19m. However, Bugakova has been selected just for the Shot in Donetsk and will focus on the Discus later at the European Youth Olympic festival in Utrecht. Another Russian youth best performance was set by Anatoliy Ryapolov in the Long Jump. The 16-year-old produced an impressive series – 7.78m, 7.90m, 7.37m, 7.81m, x, 7.80m. The wind during the competition was strong and changing, and as a result only three of Ryapolov’s jumps were wind-legal – the first, the second and the last one.Ryapolov, born in Armavir, improved a very old national record – 7.76 m, set by Igor Lozinskiy back in 1996. Ryapolov’s 7.90m jump is also now the second best jump in the world this year by a youth athlete with only China’s Wang Jianan ahead of him with 7.92m.Another new name to watch is the second-place finisher, Maxim Yunyakin, who produced the third-best mark in the world this season with 7.63m (1.2m/s).Tolokonnikov is ‘the new Borzakovskiy’The impressive sprint double by Kristina Sivkova came as no surprise. Having won the 100m at the recent junior trials (11.70), the 16-year-old prodigy won the 200 (24.80) and continued her winning streak in the 100m (11.70). Earlier in the month Sivkova set a 200m of 23.80 at the Moscow Challenge meeting after being called in as a last-minute replacement.Though Sivkova now clearly dominates the national scene, in Donetsk she will compete only in the 100m. The coaches decided to save her energy for the competition in Utrecht where Sivkova is set to run both sprint distances and the relay.Elsewhere on the track, Konstantin Tolokonnikov produced a great 800m run. His time of 1:49.13 now ranks him third in the world and first among Europeans this year. Due to his energetic style and speed, Tolokonnikov has already earned the nickname “the second Borzakovskiy”, after the Olympic 2004 champion.What makes Tolokonnikov’s result even more notable is that he was running in extreme heat – 34°C in the shade – and practically without any real competition as the second-place finisher, Konstantin Kholmogorov, finished almost two seconds behind in 1:51.08.In the girl's 100m Hurdles, Yulia Sokolova was an impressive winner in 13.87, despite a strong headwind of 2.7mps.To see a video of Yulia Sokolova inviting you watch and follow the 2013 IAAF World Youth Championships&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAqR_QT9zEY&feature=youtu.be">click here</a>. At the end of the championships, 38 athletes (22 boys and 16 girls) out of more than 700 participants managed to achieve qualifying standards for the World Youth Championships.For the first time in years, the team for Donetsk contains more boys than girls. Although Russian athletes still generally perform better on the women’s side, the situation on the senior level is starting to change with the emergence of athletes like Sergey Shubenkov and Alexander Menkov. It seems that trend has now continued at the youth level too.Natalia Maryanchik for IAAF

Records broken at Russian Youth Championships

Two national records and a team of 38 athletes for the IAAF World Youth Championships was the outcome of the Russian Youth Trials that finished on Sunday (23) in Chelyabinsk. 