Courtesy of Athletics Australia
In a sensational double act and warm-up for the Seville World Championships, Adelaide husband and wife pole vaulters, Victor Chistiakov and Tatiana Grigorieva, dominated their events at the Salamanca International Athletics Meet held on Thursday.
Both set personal bests and showed the great benefits they have gained from their training camp in Formia, Italy under the watchful eye of Sergey Bubka's mentor, Vitaly Petrov.
Grigorieva has been amongst the top five in the World Ranking List for all of 1999, but her clearance at 4.50m was a 5cm personal best and moved her into real medal contention for Seville.
On the other hand her husband's 1999 performances, whilst steady, have not to date been sufficient to get him into the bigger meets in Europe. In Salamanca he surprised even himself by clearing 5.90m to join fellow Aussie vaulter Dmitri Markov in the current world top ten.
Grigorieva now moves on to Nice on Saturday, where she will meet, amongst others, fellow Australian and women’s world record holder, Emma George. Chistiakov will be hoping to get a late spot in the men’s field after his PB in Salamanca.
In other World Championship news Athletics Australia has confirmed that Joanna Stone, Susie Power and Casey Vincent have withdrawn from the World Championship team due to injury and illness. Stone is still recovering from elbow surgery and has not recovered sufficiently, Power has been ill and unable to train and Vincent has had persistent leg injuries.
From the supplementary list Kylie Risk, Claire Fearnley and Alison Inverarity have turned their attention to next season and will not be attempting the selection benchmarks before the selectors make the final team announcements. AA selectors will make final selections August 10.
