Bressanone/Brixen – After a brave effort of front walking, 17-year-old Elena Lashmanova took a well deserved World Youth gold medal in the year’s world best time in this age category 22:55.45 to become the fifth Russian to win the 5000m Race Walk in the 10-year history of this competition.
Lashmanova didn’t leave anything to chance this morning as she led from start to finish although she did fail to maintain the 100m lead she had gathered half way through the 12 and a half laps. Eventually Lashmanova had just under five seconds to spare over fast finishing Yanelli Caballero of Mexico (22:59.27) who prevented Russia from scoring their second consecutive one-two finish as she overtook Svetlana Vasilyeva in the very last metres.
“This was a difficult race,” said the winner. “I am not very happy with my time but it was enough to win the gold medal.”
Lashmanova was well off two-time World Youth champion Tatyana Kalmykova’s World Youth best of 20:28.05 set in Ostrava two years ago but conditions in this Northern Italian city were very different….READ MORE
