The 4th World Festival of Youth and Students featured an athletics competition among its programme of events. The events were contested in Bucharest, Romania in August 1953. Mainly contested among Eastern European athletes, it served as an alternative to the more Western European-oriented 1953 Summer International University Sports Week held in Dortmund the same year.World Student Games (UIE). GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2014-12-09.
The event reached new peaks, in particular with men's long-distance battles between multiple Olympic champion Emil Zátopek and future Olympic champion Vladimir Kuts (Zátopek won both contests). Ardalion Ignatyev, Yevgeniy Bulanchik, Anatoliy Yulin, Josef Doležal, Ödön Földessy, Leonid Shcherbakov all went on to claim gold medals at the 1954 European Athletics Championships a year later. The men's hammer throw saw European champion Sverre Strandli take on and defeat the reigning Olympic champion József Csermák.
The women's events contained similarly high profile athletes. Aleksandra Chudina defended three of her four titles from the previous edition and won a different fourth title in the javelin throw (having won the 80 metres hurdles in 1951 instead). Nina Otkalenko won the 800 metres – a feat she would repeat at the 1954 European Championships – and Maria Golubnichaya did the same in the 80 m hurdles. The 1948 Olympic championOlga Gyarmati returned but was again held off the long jump podium by Chudina. Having won the Olympic title since her previous runner-up performance at the tournament, shot putter Galina Zybina went on better and won the world student title. Nina Ponomaryova defended her discus throw title, having also become Olympic champion in the meantime.OLYMPIC GAMES MEDALLISTS - ATHLETICS (WOMEN). GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2014-12-10.
Yevgeniy Bulanchik (110 m hurdles), Leonid Shcherbakov (triple jump), Ferenc Klics (discus) and Aleksandra Chudina (high jump) became the first athletes to win three consecutive titles in a discipline at the World Festival of Youth and Students. The Soviet Union and East Germany won most of the women's medals, while the men's events were dominated by Soviet, Czechoslovak and Hungarian athletes.
Medal summary Men 100 metres 10.6Not awarded 10.7200 metres 21.0 21.1 21.3400 metres 46.8 48.0 48.3800 metres 1:51.4 1:51.8 1:51.91500 metres 3:46.2 3:46.6 3:48.85000 metres 14:03.0 14:04.0 14:04.210,000 metres 29:25.8 29:41.4 30:03.43000 metres steeplechase 8:56.2 8:57.4 9:03.0110 m hurdles 14.4 14.7 14.7400 m hurdles 51.5 51.8 52.44 × 100 m relayGyörgy CsányiGéza VarasdiLászló ZarándiBéla Goldoványi 41.5František BrožMilan FilloVáclav JanečekZdeněk Pospíšil 41.5Lev KalyayevLevan SanadzeVladimir SukharevBoris Tokarev 41.64 × 400 m relayEdmunds PīlāgsIvan BondarenkoYuriy LituyevArdalion Ignatyev 3:10.8Ferenc BánhalmiZoltán AdamikEgon SolymosiLajos Szentgáli 3:11.2Werner SchneiderWilli BrombergerRolf BäslackGerhard Brauch 3:13.810,000 m walk 44:09.8 46:09.8 46:15.450 km walk 4:26:19 4:29:41 4:35:36High jump 2.00 m 1.93 m 1.93 mPole vault 4.25 m 4.20 m 4.20 mLong jump 7.63 m 7.34 m 7.33 mTriple jump 15.63 m 15.02 m 14.90 mShot put 16.76 m 16.23 m 16.09 mDiscus throw 49.27 m 48.90 m 48.43 mHammer throw 58.49 m 58.49 m 57.90 mJavelin throw 74.76 m 73.47 m 69.51 mDecathlon 6308 pts 6194 pts 6188 pts
Women 100 metres 11.7 11.8 11.9200 metres 23.9 24.1 24.5400 metres 56.3 56.7 57.1800 metres 2:10.5 2:12.7 2:13.580 m hurdles 11.2 11.3 11.44 × 100 m relayChrista StubnickAlice Köckritz-KargerRoselinde AndersAnnemarie Claussner 46.5Flora KazantsevaOlga KoshelevaLidiya PolinichenkoValentina Sopova 47.8Aranka Szabó-BarthaKlára SoósIbolya TilkovszkyIrén Lohász 47.94 × 200 m relay "A"Vera KrepkinaFlora KazantsevaNadezhda Khnykina-DvalishviliZinaida Safronova 1:36.4Gisela KöhlerChrista StubnickAlice Köckritz-KargerAnnemarie Claussner 1:37.0 "B"Galina BystrovaOlga KoshelevaPolina SolopovaZlata Lobintseva 1:40.1High jump 1.64 m 1.61 m 1.58 mLong jump 5.98 m 5.76 m 5.69 mShot put 15.34 m 15.16 m 13.91 mDiscus throw 52.63 m 46.75 m 44.38 mJavelin throw 49.39 m 47.53 m 46.70 mPentathlon 4888 pts 4109 pts 4043 pts
Medal table
References
Results World Student Games (UIE). GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2014-12-09.