A student of the Volga Region University of Sport and Tourism won the Russian Marathon Championship (42km 195m).
The race took place last Sunday in St. Petersburg, Pushkin. Almost 50 strongest runners from 23 regions of the country competed in the championship. Together with professionals started about 500 participants of Tsarskoselsky marathon.
First to cross the finish line was Ildar Minshin from Moscow who covered the distance in 2:17.45 seconds. Vladimir Chistyakov, a sophomore majoring in track and field athletics at Volga Region State University, won silver by less than ten seconds. Third place winner Ivan Kuznetsov (Sverdlovsk Oblast) lost one second to Vladimir, his result was 2:17.55.
It is noteworthy that sportsmen ran more than 35 kilometers in a large, dense group and only in the last kilometres the top three winners were defined. The final distribution of the prizes took place a few hundred metres before the finish line.
