World champ Kolesnichenko wins technical solo
Ukraine’s Kolodiy and Lyskun take first Euro diving gold
GLASGOW: Svetlana Kolesnichenko, the new standard bearer for artistic aquatics, added another European Championships gold to her huge collection of international medals when she took the synchronized swimming solo technical title yesterday. In a Russian team that dominates the sport, the 24-year-old Kolesnichenko has become its most celebrated figure with one Olympic and 13 world titles to her name.
Yet it is only in the past year having taken up the solo events and won four titles at the 2017 world championships that the athlete from Gatchina, near St Petersburg, has really flourished. Performing to Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt, Kolesnichenko was not quite at her very best but still dominated, her mark of 93.4816 putting her more than two points clear of Ukrainian silver medallist Yelyzaveta Yakhno (91.3517).
Italy’s Linda Cerruti (90.2282) took the bronze as Kolesnichenko celebrated her sixth European title, and the second in Glasgow following her victory in the duet technical with Varvara Subbotina. “I will work harder in the next year to improve. I’m getting stronger,” said Kolesnichenko, who has the chance to collect another two golds on the final day of competition today. Kolesnichenko has certainly come a long way from the six-year-old girl who was taken to a synchronized swimming club because her mother thought she was too fat, only for the coach to originally refuse to take her on.
Russia underlined their dominance by later winning the gold in the technical team final, with Ukraine again having to settle for silver and Italy the bronze. The winning performance, which earned an impressive total of 94.6000, was so good that it even caused a ripple of amazement within the Russian squad. “Tatiana Pokrovskaia (the team coach) smiled-and that is amazing,” explained one member of the winning team, Mariia Shurochkina. “She told us we were amazing. It feels like a happy new year because one time in a year she says, ‘OK, that was very good.’”
First Euro diving gold
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Sofiia Lyskun demonstrated notable composure at 16 to pull off a winning final dive under pressure, enabling the teenager and partner Oleg Kolodiy to celebrate victory in the mixed team final at the European Championships yesterday. The action at the inaugural multi-event Championships moved from Glasgow to the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh where the first of 13 diving finals was being staged and Lyskun provided a memorable opening. The youngster demonstrated her appetite for big meet competition when, aged 15, winning bronze at the 10 meters platform synchro event at last year’s European Championships in Kiev. Yet this was pressure of a different order when she was forced to produce a fine final dive to allow her and 25-year-old maths graduate Kolodiy to snatch the gold medal from Germany’s Lou Massenberg and Maria Kurjo.
The youngster’s difficult dive-a back two-and-ahalf somersaults and one-and-a-half twists in pikefrom the 10 meter board was so well executed that she earned the highest final round mark of any diver. It gave the Ukrainian pair a winning total of 355.90 to the German duo’s 352.60, while the Russian team of Evgenii Kuznetsov and Iuliia Timoshinina were left to curse two poor final dives that turned a likely gold into bronze.