Yuri Borzakovsky. Sports biography

Birthday April 12, 1981

Russian runner, Olympic champion, world and European champion, Honored Master of Sports of Russia

Graduate of the Moscow State Academy of Physical Culture. Champion of Russia among youth (1997) in the 800 m run, winner of the World Youth Games (1998), multiple champion of Russia in the 800 m run (1999-2009), Russian record holder in the 400 and 800 m run among juniors (1999), European and Russian record holder in the 800 m race among youth (2001), world, European and Russian record holder among youth in the 800 m indoor race (2001), Russian record holder in the 600 m indoor race (2010), 800 m ( 2001), 800 m indoor (2001) and 1000 m indoor (2008), European Cup winner (1999), European junior champion (1999), two-time winner of the European Winter Championships in the 800 m race (2000 and 2009), European youth champion in the 400 m run (2001), winner of the Winter World Championships in the 800 m run (2001), 2004 Olympic champion in the 800 m run.

Borzakovsky's main distance, in which he has competed at the level of the world elite since 2000, is the 800 m. His distinctive tactic is to stay behind the group for the first 500 m, and then take the lead thanks to his extremely strong sprinting qualities.

At the age of 19, Yuri competed at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, where he reached the final race, but finished sixth. In 2001, he became the world indoor champion, and at the 2003 World Championships in Paris, he was a silver medalist, losing 0.03 seconds to the Algerian Jabir Said-Guerni.

Yuri achieved his greatest success at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, becoming the Olympic champion, beating South African Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and world record holder Wilson Kipketer from Denmark in the final.

At the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki, Borzakovsky again won the silver medal, losing to Rashid Ramzi from Bahrain.

At the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Yuri took 3rd place.

At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, he took 3rd place in the semi-finals and thus did not qualify for the final round. He himself explained this by acclimatization and mistakes in pre-Olympic preparation.

Member of the Russian national team since 1998. He plays for the VSFO Dynamo (Moscow region). Lives in Zhukovsky (Moscow region). Married, has two sons.

Awards

• Order of Friendship - for great contribution to the development of physical culture and sports, high sporting achievements at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad 2004 in Athens

As a boy, he became a football player and became a world and European champion in athletics. We wish Yuri good luck at the upcoming Olympics!

Biography

Yuri Borzakovsky was born on April 12, 1981 in a simple family. His mother worked as a janitor, and his father worked as a garbage collector. The boy, born on Cosmonautics Day, was named after Gagarin. Yuri was the eldest in the family and was an example for the younger children.

At the age of ten, he began training in the athletics section. The energetic and lively child enjoyed the training sessions. By the age of twelve, he achieved some positive results in this sport and received the nickname Kenyan.

Since childhood, Yuri has admired runners from this country and claimed that they have a different muscle structure, ideal for running.

However, the athlete himself has all the data to win various competitions. He is naturally endowed with enormous muscle strength: muscles make up 50% of the mass of his legs.

The amazing endurance and speed developed by an athlete on a treadmill is the result of constant training. Combined with tactical knowledge, on which half the success in middle-distance running depends, these qualities allow Yuri to win various competitions.
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The highest achievements of Yuri Borzakovsky

Achievements:
Champion of the XXVIII Olympic Games (2004, Athens) in the 800m race
World Indoor Champion 2001,
European Indoor Champion 2000 (Ghent),
Silver medalist of the World Championships 2003 (Paris) and 2005 (Helsinki),
Bronze medalist of the World Championships 2007 (Osaka) and indoors 2006 (Moscow),
World record holder among juniors indoors, European record holder, Russian record holder in the 800 meter race

Interview with Yuri

Yura, at the age of 19, in infancy for a middle athlete, you already ran in the Olympic final. When did you become interested in running?
- Everything happened by chance. At the age of 10, he went to play football at the sports school in his hometown of Zhukovsky. Two weeks later there were the first competitions. I thought - in football, it turned out - in running. I came to the finish line second. I was very happy and decided to stay.

Do you regret football?
- We often play football during training. In the game you move and don’t notice a huge amount of acceleration, you get less tired psychologically. Football helps running.

How did your parents react to your sports activities?
- Fine. They are simple people. Father is a driver, mother is a janitor.

By today's standards, you got married very early. Where did you meet your wife?
- Irina and I went to the same kindergarten. Then they separated, the parents changed their place of residence. True, we only found out about this at the age of 16, when we met again and remembered our childhood. After this meeting we never parted. I began to look after her. And three years later they got married.

Do you remember when you proposed?
- We walked together, as usual, around the city. Then we came home. And something inside pushed me. I decided to tell Ira: be my wife. She immediately agreed. It was after the Australian Olympics. I then completed my task in Sydney - I made it to the finals. Using positive emotions after the wedding, I won the 2001 Winter World Championships. And in May last year a boy was born, they named him Yaroslav.

Svetlana Masterkova about Yuri Borzakovsky

Yuri Borzakovsky is an ideal athlete. He is very strong mentally. His tactics - a slight lag and a dash at the finish - are a win-win tactic. But only on one condition. If the athlete is in ideal physical shape.

This is how Yuri won the Olympic Games in Athens. However, if there was something wrong in the preparation during the season, it is very difficult to win with such tactics. Borzakovsky knows how to use it perfectly and due to this he has an advantage over his opponents.

Video

3 videos

Yuri Borzakovsky: “Victories at the Olympics are not so easily forgotten”

Russian runner Yuri Borzakovsky spoke about the upcoming Olympics in Beijing and shared his memories of his victory at the 2004 Games.

“The start at the national championship is preparatory. A kind of training for Olympic running: a race, the next day a semi-final and the next day a final. I had a race here, the semi-final the next day, and three days later, on the 22nd, I also had a race in Stockholm. There I want to work out the final. And, of course, I also train: training, training, rest, training. This is how Olympic running is practiced week after week, month after month. But in general, this Olympics will be easier for me psychologically, because I already have the title of Olympic champion.

I have never been to Beijing. Irkutsk has the same time zone, so I will go there on August 4th. I’ll undergo some kind of acclimatization and fly to Beijing three days before the start. I haven’t planned the Olympic running yet, because there are no race lineups as such yet. Then I’ll see what the draw looks like, find out my race and, based on this information, I’ll dance, how to run, what tactics to use. I calm myself down psychologically. If you start thinking about the Olympics, sleep immediately disappears. You get tired, your body is exhausted and wants to sleep, but thoughts about the start don’t let you sleep. As soon as you forget, you immediately switch off. Therefore, I try not to think about the race or counting elephants, but to remember my friends - how we went fishing with them. Or better yet, I’ll think about my family: my wife, sons Yaroslav and Lev, who are now relaxing with their mother-in-law at the dacha. They have already grown up, and they have their own friends and their own affairs there. With such thoughts I immediately fall asleep.

Borzakovsky Yuri (born in 1981) is a Russian track and field athlete. 2001 World Indoor Athletics Champion in the 800m race.

Yuri Borzakovsky was born on April 12, 1981 in a simple family. His mother worked as a janitor, and his father worked as a garbage collector. The boy, born on Cosmonautics Day, was named after Gagarin. Yuri was the eldest in the family and was an example for the younger children.

At the age of ten, he began training in the athletics section. The energetic and lively child enjoyed the training sessions. By the age of twelve, he achieved some positive results in this sport and received the nickname Kenyan.

Since childhood, Yuri has admired runners from this country and claimed that they have a different muscle structure, ideal for running.

However, the athlete himself has all the data to win various competitions. He is naturally endowed with enormous muscle strength: muscles make up 50% of the mass of his legs.

The amazing endurance and speed developed by an athlete on a treadmill is the result of constant training. Combined with tactical knowledge, on which half the success in middle-distance running depends, these qualities allow Yuri to win various competitions.

At the World Indoor Athletics Championships held in Lisbon in the spring of 2001, nineteen-year-old Borzakovsky beat all competitors in the 800 m final, finishing first and winning gold. He beat the silver medalist by almost 2 seconds and showed the second fastest time in the history of indoor track and field games.

Yuri Borzakovsky's tactical trick is a slow start and a fast finish. 500 m from the start, the runner catches up and easily passes his opponents, leaving them no chance. His advantage increases with almost every step, reaching tens of meters.

However, athletes from other teams do not like this style of running. So at one of the international tournaments, Kenyan Noah Ngeni, at that time the world record holder in the 1000 m race, hit Yuri, who was trying to get around his opponents, in the liver, and when he tried again, he received another sharp poke in the back.

In the fall of 2000, Yuri Borzakovsky married his beloved girl Irina, a student at the regional academy of physical education. The famous track and field athlete himself studies at this institution. The young family lives in the city of Zhukovsky, Moscow region, and the main source of income is the prize money that Yuri receives at competitions.

However, neither big earnings nor high-profile titles turned his head. Yuri Borzakovsky continues his daily training, hoping to become a prize-winner at the next competition.

Brief biographical dictionary

"Yuri Borzakovsky" and other articles from the section

Yura, at the age of 19, in infancy for a middle athlete, you already ran in the Olympic final. When did you become interested in running?

Everything happened by chance. At the age of 10, he went to play football at the sports school in his hometown of Zhukovsky. Two weeks later there were the first competitions. I thought it was football, but it turned out that it was running. I came to the finish line second. I was very happy and decided to stay.

Do you regret football?

During training we often play football. In the game you move and don’t notice a huge amount of acceleration, you get less tired psychologically. Football helps running.

How did your parents react to your sports activities?

Fine. They are simple people. Father is a driver, mother is a janitor.

By today's standards, you got married very early. Where did you meet your wife?

Irina and I went to the same kindergarten. Then they separated, the parents changed their place of residence. True, we only found out about this at the age of 16, when we met again and remembered our childhood. After this meeting we never parted. I began to look after her. And three years later they got married.

Best of the day

Do you remember when you proposed?

We walked together, as usual, around the city. Then we came home. And something inside pushed me. I decided to tell Ira: be my wife. She immediately agreed. It was after the Australian Olympics. I then completed my task in Sydney - I made it to the finals. Using positive emotions after the wedding, I won the 2001 Winter World Championships. And in May last year a boy was born, they named him Yaroslav.

And who is the boss in your family?

My wife says I am. But sometimes it shows the opposite. It happens that Ira is wrong about something, she is aware of it, but she tries not to show it to me. He says: I’m older than you, which means I’m right. She really is a year older. But when she needs to answer for something, she says: you are the eldest in the family, you sort it out. (Ira later deciphered: “Married means to her husband, he is the most important!” - V.R.)

As a child I fed the whole family

What does a young wife do besides raising a child?

She is a needlewoman, a seamstress by profession. Maybe for fun, sew yourself a dress or suit. Before the birth of her son, she managed to work as a secretary. Now a housewife. And even before that I was involved in athletics and ran. Nowadays, too, to keep fit, he sometimes goes for a run in the forest.

A small child probably doesn’t let you sleep at night, do you have to get up often?

To be honest, they let me get enough sleep. I don't get up. Everyone understands that I have a hard workout tomorrow and I need to be in shape.

Do you live separately from your parents?

We are currently living with our mother-in-law. After victories at the World and European Championships, they promised me better living conditions. But for some reason this process took a long time. And my coach, Vyacheslav Makarovich, arranged a meeting with the governor of the Moscow region. We arrived and talked about our problems. Boris Gromov gave me a three-room apartment. Now the construction of the house is nearing completion. By the way, a modern stadium for track and field athletes will be built in Zhukovsky. We went to look for housing and got a whole stadium in addition - great! There is already a project, the place has been cleared, and by the summer they will probably have time to lay the path.

Who cooks for you and your wife at home?

In the kitchen now either the wife or the mother-in-law is in charge. I don’t want to brag, but I can also make a lot of different dishes. I like to cook cabbage soup, for example. When I was unmarried and living with my parents, I had to cook often. My mother and father are at work, and I also have a younger brother and sister. As the eldest, he cooked dinners and fed the whole family.

Athletes are usually interested in cars, are you an exception?

Yes, I really like driving a car. But unlike my brother, I don’t like to dig into them. Thank God my car doesn't break down.

And what model?

I learned to drive a V8. After the European Championship, I got some money and changed my old car to a “nine”.

What sports plans do you have for this year?

My coach and I decided to skip all the winter competitions. We want to be better prepared for the main start of the season - the summer World Championships in Paris.

But what about the “Golden League”, where the winner receives several tens of kilograms of gold. Don't want to become a millionaire?

To be first, you need to win all the summer starts of the Golden League. To do this you will need to give it your all. Maintain peak form for three months. I'm still young for such loads. At some stages, of course, I will participate. But we must remember that the championship in Paris is ahead. And next year - the Olympics. In my opinion, a small Olympic gold medal is worth more than a pile of gold bars of the highest standard.

Yuri is not an alien

They say that Borzakovsky recovers faster than other athletes from physical activity and his heart works differently than others. And the reason for this is his naturally slow pulse. For comment, we turned to the President of the Sports Medicine Federation, Lev MARKOV.

Yuri has a very good heart from birth, and also a very trained one. It pumps oxygen better than competitors and helps the runner use his strength more effectively over the course. As for the pulse, these are rumors. He is not an alien, as some people think. And the fact that even on the eve of the competition Yuri had a cold, but went out and defeated everyone, should not be surprising. The reason is simple. When a person is sick, all the reserves of his body are mobilized. And they help you quickly adapt to new loads. The body seems to turn on additional power and work to the maximum! But only if the person has a very healthy heart.