Konishcheva Irina

Happy birthday to Kazakhstan’s heptathlete Irina Konichsheva, who won an international medal at eighteen in the hardest event on the programme.

In November, at the Islamic Solidarity Games in Riyadh, Irina took the bronze medal in the heptathlon with 5,270 points, in a senior field, at eighteen years old. She is also an Asian U20 Championships silver medallist and a multiple Kazakh national champion, indoors and out, and she trains in the Astana Olympic Training Centre group.

The heptathlon is the event that does not let an athlete hide. Seven disciplines across two days: a sprint hurdle, a high jump, a shot put, a 200m, a long jump, a javelin and an 800m that arrives when there is nothing left. An athlete cannot be good at six of them and get away with it, because the scoring tables will find the seventh. Winning a senior international medal in it at eighteen means seven separate technical educations were already far enough along to hold up under championship pressure on the same weekend.

Her individual marks show why. She has run 13.88 over the 100m hurdles and jumped 6.13m in the long jump, both quick enough to matter inside a heptathlon. And she has run 1:00.42 for the 400m hurdles, which is not a heptathlon event at all, and is the kind of number that tells you the range is real rather than assembled.

Туған күніңмен құттықтаймын, Ирина! Өміріңде кездесетін барлық сәттер сені алға жетелеп, ғажап ғұмыр тілеймін. Құтты болсын! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇰🇿