Category — Russia

Valeriy Borchin of Russia out-walked Jefferson Perez of Ecuador to win the gold medal in 20-kilometer speed walking, an event which may be described as the orphan son of running and walking.

Valeryiy’s gold is the fourth for Russia, a sleeping giant which has yet to flex its muscles in Beijing. To their credit, Russia’s wrestlers are fully awake as they won the first three gold medals for good old Mother Russia.

Photo source: beijing2008

Are you thinking, “Who’s that girl?” This girl, my friend, is Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva. She won the gold medal during the 2004 Athens Olympics and she plans to continue competing until 2013 when Russia hosts the World Athletic Championships. This means that you will be seeing more of her in the future and in this blog.

Yelena won the Laureaus Award for Sportsmanship in 2007 and, in the words of wikipedia, “makes fun of the fact that female pole vaulters are seen as sex symbols for male couch potatoes”. Hehe. Male couch potatoes, you can learn more about our Olympic hottie by visiting her website.

More hotties:
Hottie Pellegrini Wins Fourth Gold Medal for Italy
Olympic Hottie of the Day: Leryn Franco
Olympic Hotties: Amanda Beard Naked
Olympic Hottie of the Day: Goldie Sayers
Olympic Hottie of the Day: Juliana Felisberta Silva
Olympic Hottie: Yelena Isinbayeva
Olympic Hottie: Maria Sharapova

PHOTO SOURCE: Yelena Isinbayeva’s Official Website

Arrghh. Here’s another athlete we are including in our doper’s Hall of Shame: Russia’s Tatyana Lysenko, the world record holder for the hammer throw.

She failed a drug test according to the IAAF and has been banned for two years. She will miss the Beijing Olympics and her results from the past two years have been wiped off the record books.

PHOTO SOURCE: AFP

Earlier, we brought you how Australia’s Brenton Rickard trains for the Olympics. Now, let’s have Olympic 800m champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy tell us something about his training:

I train twice a day, six days per week. With this I need 8 to 9 hours of sleep each night and one-and-a-half hours of sleep in the afternoon. On Wednesday or Thursday I usually have one practice, and instead of the second one I go to a banya, and on Sunday I have banya too.

Eight to nine hours of sleep? You’re luckier than me, Yuriy. But then, with all that running you’re doing, you do need more hours of sleep to recover physically. By the way for those of you who don’t know, a banya is a Russian sauna.

What other things does Yuriy do apart from training and visiting banyas?

I like to cook and used to cook tasty food, but my wife does not let me now. She says that it is the women’s job to cook, and everyone must do their job, and she does all cooking at home.

[Read more →]

Athens 2004 silver medalist Denis Nizhegorodov (left) set a new world record in the 50 km walk by clocking three hours, 34 minutes and 14 seconds at the World Race Walking Cup on Sunday, 11 May, according to a Reuters report.

The 27-year-old Russian bettered the time of 3:35.47 set by Australian Nathan Deakes on Dec. 2, 2006 in Geelong, Australia.

“It becomes a good tradition for me to set records before the Olympics,” said Nizhegorodov, who won the silver medal in the 50 km walk at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

“I broke the world record in May 2004, a couple of months before the Games in Athens, but unfortunately that record wasn’t ratified. I hope it’ll be different this time round.”

PHOTO SOURCE: olympic.org