Tatyana Andrianova (RUS) (© AFP/Getty Images)
Tatyana Andrianova, 26, was the fastest 800m runner in the world in 2005, and the bronze medallist at the World Championships but she will most certainly miss the next edition of the championships in Osaka 2007, as she has plans to marry her partner Dmitriy Bogdanov, the European Indoor 800m champion, and have a child, returning in time for the Beijing Olympics.
However, Andrianova who is currently IAAF World Ranked number three for the 800m, still has competitive goals for 2006, and while she will not run indoors this winter, the European Championships in Gothenburg this summer are a major focus.
Andrianova is trained by a very famous coaching partnership, the former international athlete Svetlana Styrkina and her former trainer Yakov Elianov, who over the years have nurtured a solid group of excellent middle distance runners. The double Olympic champion of 1996, Svetlana Masterkova is at the head of the impressive list. But one shouldn’t forget as well names like Svetlana Kitova, Natalya Gorelova, Svetlana Cherkasova, Olga Raspopova…Now the name of Tatyana Andrianova has been added.
In 2000, with no one to coach her, the director of the sport school in Andrianova’s home town of Yaroslavl made an unsolicited phone call to Svetlana Styrkina, and asked her if she would consider Andrianova as a pupil, and after being convinced of the young girl’s talent, she was allowed to join the Styrkina-Elianov group in the spring of 2001.
However, it took the new pupil two long years to adapt to the strict demands of her coaches. For Andrianova was an unpredictable character, and there were stresses and conflicts at the beginning but all along there was a mutual respect, and today Andrianova is the first to confirm that: “I’m lucky because Svetlana Styrkina, my marvellous coach, is always near me. She is like my private psychologist. She was an excellent runner herself and knows very well what is going on with me in all situations and in all the stressful circumstances.”
In her international championship career, Andrianova has suffered from a lack of tactical knowledge, and as a result though she had the physical talent, she could only finish fifth place at both the World Indoor Championships in Budapest in 2004, and at that summer’s Olympic Games in Athens.
It was a tactical mistake as well that prevented Andrianova from taking more than the bronze in Helsinki last summer too. She prefers to take the lead from the very start of a race in order that there’ll be nobody in front of her. Well, unfortunately in major championships such a simple racing philosophy seldom leads to gold medals.
“I’m trying not to pay attention to my opponents. I have my own tasks and it’s my duty to fulfill them,” explains Andrianova. “There is nobody whom I would like to copy. There are no runners I’m afraid of. I’m not going to imitate anybody.”
Styrkina is of the opinion that the rivalry between the plentiful number of Russian runners at 800m is too strong. The five best results of the last season belonged to five Russian runners, but of the squad of three in Helsinki, while all made it to the final, only one medal resulted. The Russian’s are leaving some of their best racing at home, battling each other into the ground to make the national squad. For example in order to win the national championships last year, Andrianova had to produce her best form earlier in the season than she would have liked to, and so by Helsinki she had come off the boil both physically and mentally.
Andrianova’s personal life is about to change. She is going to get married. Her future husband is a very well-known runner Dmitriy Bogdanov, the European Indoor and Russian outdoor champion at 800m. And after the 2006 season the plan is that she will become pregnant, with the intention that she will return to the track in 2008 in time for the Olympics.
But such hopes and dreams are far away still, and this summer Andrianova will aim at the European Championships in Sweden. Styrkina predicts that 1:57 will be enough to win the gold medal in Gothenburg, and after the tactical errors of the previous two years her pupil is convinced that gold will be hers this summer.
“Now I’ve learned how to win,” confirms Andrianova
Nickolai Dolgopolov and Rostislav Orlov for the IAAF