2007 IFBB EUROPEAN WOMEN BODYBUILDING,FITNESS AND BODYFITNESS AND MEN FITNESS CHAMPIONSHIPS

by Andrew Michalak
All Pictures by Pawel Kleineder

124 athletes from 26 countries landed in Belgrade on May 25th and then were transported by buses 140 km south, to Cacak, to participate in this year’s European Women Championships, included also men fitness category.

Cacak welcomed us with very hot and stormy weather, so many athletes, being for over 10 weeks on the low caloric diet and dehydrated, had their hard moments on the stage. Nobody from the 2006 winners came to defend the title. It is a common practice in Europe nowadays, that continental winners are then focused on the World Championships. In this situation, the road to the top was opened for the new stars and they used up this possibility.

According to the 2006 IFBB Congress decision, the number of categories in women bodybuilding has been limited to two. Florina Visan of Romania had her happy moments, winning the 55 kg class, after few final places in the recent years. The heavyweight category, over 55 kg, also had new champion, Olga Guryeva from Russia. Both champions had to run a very close battle with their main rivals: Zdena Nazarejova (55 kg) and Salla Kauranen (+55 kg), who even managed to win single rounds with the champions.

Both women fitness categories were also the place of very tough battles. Anna Urbanikova of Slovakia won both physique rounds in 163 cm class and grasped the title even though she lost few points in the routine to Margaryta Belinska (Ukraine) and Tetiana Savytska (former Ukrainian competitor, representing Germany now). Similar situation was in the tall class where Tetiana Belousova (Ukraine) performed an extraordinary routine, winning this round, but lost too many points in the other rounds to Evgeniya Filyanina and Maria Alexeeva (both from Russia), placing third. The sweet victory went to perfectly shaped Filyanina, who showed her best lifetime condition.

As usual, women body-fitness was the most crowded division, with 58% input to the total number of athletes. Two Russian girls: Anna Rasputnyak and Elina Evgenyeva dominated the shortest class, up to 158 cm, and Evgenyeva, bronze medal winner at the 2006 World Championships, had bitterly to accept the victory of a new star, Rasputnyak, in all three rounds.

There were three pretenders to the gold medal in 163 cm category: Katarina Verbovska (Slovakia), Eleni Kritikopoulou (Greece) and Zrinka Korac (Croatia). Each of them won one round but the title finally went to two-time world champion, Verbovska, being ahead of still improving Kritikopulou and a newcomer in the medal zone, Korac. The differences between them were one point only!

Gold medal of Natalia Siarheyeva from Belarus in 168 cm class was the most unexpected victory at these Championships. The Belarusian team came to the European Women Championships for the first time in their history and won the European title at once. Kirill Dubkov, Belarusian Federation president, and other members of their team were incredibly happy. Katarzyna Kozakiewicz of Poland lost her silver medal in the last round, overpassed by one point by Irina Molokova of Russia.

The champion of the champions, Yulia Zabelina from Russia, emerged from the tallest category, over 168 cm. She was out of the medal zone last year in Viterbo but improved so great that won all three rounds of her category with the perfect scores from the judges and then grasped the overall title without any problems. World Championships runner-up Ljuba Pantovic (Serbia) and new personality form the Czech Republic, Jirina Horka, were tied at the second place, which finally went to Pantovic due to the better subscore in the 3rd round.

Stanislav Zaynilov of Russia easily regained his European title won in 2005 in Brasov, while Andriy Karpikov overpassed Mikhail Ivanov, new Russian B-Team competitor, in the 3rd round and finished second.

Russia brought two very well prepared teams to Cacak and Russian B-Team athletes placed higher than Russian A-Team stars in three cases. Anyway, Russian A-Team won the best team’s classification, pushing down Slovakia to the 2nd place. "Reborn" Ukrainian team advanced to the 3rd place, ahead of the Czech Republic and Romania.