The start of the year in Ukraine is marked by Orthodox Christmas celebrations, with the first competitions having a celebratory spirit. This year, attendance at the traditional Christmas event was drastically curtailed due to Covid-19 restrictions, with only a few athletes and coaches showing up at Kiev's indoor sports arena on January 9.
In race walking, only 6 athletes participated in the 5,000 meters indoor (3 female and 3 male), but the winners were among the most known Ukrainian walkers today.
5,000m indoor women
Victory of Lyudmila Olyanovska (UKR), the only athlete in the country to win a medal (bronze) at the World Athletics Championships (Beijing-2015), with a mark of 20:59.1.
With this result Olyanovska broke her own national indoor distance record (previous of 21:04.90 set in Sumy, UKR on 22.12.2013). The personal best of the athlete over the same outdoor distance is 20:15.71 also established in Kiev and dating back to 4.6.2014.
Second place to Oksana Kulahina (UKR) in 24:26.1
Third place to Evgeniya Galcova (ULR) in 27:10.1.
5,000m indoor men
Victory by Eduard Zabuzhenko (UKR), 22 years old, won without opposition, with a mark of 19:07.5, not far from his personal best (18:53.77).
After the race he said that he expected to do better, but this was not possible due to the lack of competition from other athletes. In fact Zabuzhenko had started very fast, but he had finally gave way.
Second place to Kirilo Andrushchenko (UKR) in 20:38.9
Third place to Stanislav Bogatyriov (UKR) in 22:53.4.
The Ukrainian team should soon prepare for a stage in Turkey, where it will participate in the March competitions in Antalya (6/3) and then return to compete in Ukraine and the national winter championships in Lutsk (20/3).