Lysenko limbers up for Daegu with national title

Women's hammer thrower Tatiana Lysenko, back competing after serving a two year drugs ban, clinched her third national title at the Russian athletics championships here on Sunday. Lysenko limbered up for the August 27-September 4 world championships in Daegu, South Korea by clinching gold with a throw of 73.26 metres. In May, 2008, she was banned for two years after testing positive in an out-of-competition test for an anti-oestrogenic agent that can block female hormones. She missed the Beijing Olympic Games and was stripped of her world record of 78.61m set in May 26, 2007. After Sunday's win Lysenko said: "After winning today I can say that my preparations for the world championships are going according to my plan." "I expect tough competition in Daegy and I hope I will manage to improve my performance for the start of the season's main event." Kirill Ikonnikov won the men's hammer throw with 79.04m on the last day of the championships. Alexei Petrov, who clinched the silver medal at the junior European championships this year, managed to overcome injury to win the triple jump national title with a jump of 16.88m. Alsu Murtazina won the women's triple jump in 14.55m. "I'm very happy both with my win and the result," Murtazina said. "I worked hard this season and managed to improve my performance a great deal. And I also hope to perform well at Daegu." Yekaterina Martynova, who won the 1500m in Barcelona this week, also finished first at the national championships as she clocked a time of four minutes 01.68sec, 0.09sec ahead of the second-placed Yekaterina Kostetskaya.