ALMATY – The 23rd Memorial for Gusman Kosanov track and field tournament was held recently in Almaty earlier in June.
Iranian sprinters Khasan Tafian and Reza Khasemi placed first and second respectively in the tournament’s prestigious 100-metre race. Tafian finished in 10.15 seconds and Khasemi finished in 10.16 seconds. Their finishes qualified them at various levels for a World Cup-level race to be held in Moscow later this year.
Almaty jumper Marina Aitova also did well at the Memorial tournament and earned the right to compete at a higher level in the upcoming Moscow event. Eight-hundred-metre runner Margarita Mukasheva from Kazakhstan also qualified for the Moscow event.
Other athletes who performed well at the memorial tournament included Nikita Filippov, who repeated his best result of 5.6 metres and Olga Lapina, who established a new Kazakhstan pole vaulting record at 4.1 metres. Pavlodar long jumper Konstantin Safronov also riveted the attention of the tournament’s crowd with a long jump of 8.1 metres, which broke his previous personal record of 8.06 metres.
