Yuriy Borzakovskiy
Last Thursday marked the 31st birthday of Russia’s 2004 Olympic Games 800m champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy and he used the occasion to announce that he will be bidding to win over two laps of the track at this summer’s European Athletics Championships.
At last summer’s World Championships in the Korean city of Daegu, despite seven years having elapsed since his triumph in Athens, Borzakovskiy showed that he was still a force to be reckoned with on the global stage when he won the bronze medal.
However, although Muscovite has twice won European 800m titles indoors, he has never won an 800m medal at the European Athletics Championships, although he was part of the Russia’s 4x400m silver medal winning quartet in 2002.
The 2012 European Athletics Championships will be held in Helsinki, Finland, from 27 June to 1 July.
Borzakovskiy gave a brief interview to the Russian athletics federation website www.rusathletics.com on Friday and talked about the season ahead.
Q: Yuriy, how did you celebrate your birthday?
A: My whole training group went out on a ‘celebratory’ 16km training run in the morning. We are now in a training camp in Kyrgyzstan doing a big workload and looking to increase endurance. After lunch, the guys went to walk in the mountains, made a lot of photos. In the evening, we eat kebabs; that was my birthday.
Q: What are the conditions like there?
A: Excellent, 15-20 degrees. It’s sunny. I’ve been running in shorts and t-shirts. It’s not really cold. However, although it’s not too chilly, I am taking care to avoid catching any colds and generally I’ve been very careful to monitor my health. I’ve also been doing a lot of stretching exercises so that, in spite of the hard training, I remain flexible. This means that I’m significantly reducing the risk of injury.
Q: How would you rate your physical condition?
A: OK, nothing hurts. I gradually returned to training process after the winter break, which only lasted 10 days.
Q: What are you plans for the summer?
A: My first competition of the season plan will be on 2 June, when I will compete at the Prefontaine Classic in the United States. From that point, the European Athletics Championships and Olympic Games are my targets.
In Helsinki, I will not be in top shape, I’ll be most likely at around 80 per cent. Before I leave for London, I’ll again go to mountains. We did this before the World Championships in Daegu and it produced good results.
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