In URX season 263, Yulia and Ekaterina Gavrilova have had two head-to-head meetings, and both times the result was the same: Yulia first — overall and in the age group — Gavrilova second, in both. First Historic 1969, then Claude Monet. Both times the gap was one place, and the reverse score has not happened once this season.
Across their careers they have eight meetings with places, and the score there is level — 4–4. So season 263 does not overturn the rivalry from scratch; it continues what was already an even contest. Gavrilova has her own separate mark as well: six overall seconds across her career — a result that does not come easily in this league. A first place is not among them yet, and both of this season’s meetings with Yulia closed as seconds again.
Not twins
Yulia has been in the league since March 2025 — 2515 km, 275 runs, 35 races, five overall wins in her career. Gavrilova arrived in December — 544 km, 66 outings, 12 races, and the six overall seconds already mentioned — a steady level of podium contention across nine months in the league. Both race in W30. The resemblance ends there.
On paper the pace favourite is Gavrilova: a career average of 5:55 against 6:56 for Yulia, a personal record of 4:43 over five kilometres against 5:24. But in both meetings this season it was Yulia who was faster. Paper form does not always hold on the course — and this is exactly that case.
July: the same picture twice
Historic 1969 is a classic, nine kilometres, one outing each. Gavrilova goes out first, on 15 July, and closes 9.03 km at 6:15 per kilometre. Yulia starts five days later, 10.03 km at 5:50. The one who went out earlier did not hold the line. First against second — overall and in the age group, with no gap between them: next is Yulia Panenkova, third.
Claude Monet, 25 km, both open their accounts on the same day — 11 July. Gavrilova’s first outing is short: 4.97 km, a short five-kilometre park run captioned “5 Vyorst — Prityazhenie”. Yulia takes more the same day — 7.02 km. After that Gavrilova completes the distance with two ten-kilometre outings; Yulia with three more short pieces of five to seven: 7.04, 5.42 and 7.23 km, four runs in the race in all. The result: Yulia has 26.71 km at 5:51 per kilometre, Gavrilova 25.01 km at 6:08. First against second again, again with no gap between them: third is Olga Sukharevskaya. After two meetings this season the head-to-head score is 2–0, and both times with the same one-place gap.
A race only one of them entered
Depth 100 is July’s hundred kilometres, and here a third meeting did not happen. Yulia enters the race on 22 July, the day after her last run on Monet, and by 31 July closes 101.6 km in eleven outings, average pace 5:55. First overall, first in the age group.
Gavrilova is not in Depth 100 at all — not a race she failed, a race she never started. Nearby you can see what that hundred cost the others: Yulia Panenkova stops at 80.2 km, Olga Sukharevskaya at 90.1, both with the distance unclosed. Yulia completes it in full. The pair’s third July meeting never came together — Depth 100 sent them into different standings.
Careers: 4–4, and it was not always Yulia’s story
Their very first meeting happened before July, in winter — on Otmorozki 2025, closed at the end of February. The upper hand there was Yulia’s: 250 km against 136 for Gavrilova, tenth overall against sixteenth.
Then came season 262, and in it Gavrilova took the initiative. In April she beats Yulia on Barrel 100; in May on Historic 1945 and on Streets: three times in a row second overall and first in the age group against fourth or fifth for Yulia. In June a short “13” breaks the run: on the 7th Yulia finishes it second, on the 15th Gavrilova finishes third. But Rembrandt is already under way in those same days, and it puts things back: Yulia closes it on 20 June in fourth, Gavrilova two days later second overall. The season 262 total is 4–1 for Gavrilova, and the only crack in that score closed almost at once.
The career score comes out exactly 4–4: one win for Yulia in winter, 4–1 for Gavrilova in the middle of 262, and two wins for Yulia this summer. Season 263 does not overturn the story from scratch — it does, twice in a row and without a single miss, what used to happen only once a season.
What is happening now
Buenos Aires runs until 30 September, Open, scored by kilometres. Yulia is fourth among the women here — 182 km, behind Margarita Pochekutova (403 km), Svetlana Serebryannikova (250 km) and Svetlana Volozhanina (227 km). Gavrilova has 55.9 km in the same standings — nowhere near the same fight. Judging by the captions on her runs, for her this looks more like a continuation of a regular trail programme than a chase for place: on 23 August she runs the “MMK Wild Trail” race, on 5 September a trail in Beloretsk.
Sun is open until the end of the month, target distance 30 km. Gavrilova has 10.6 km so far; Yulia has not logged a single line in these standings. Natalya Sokol, who took first on Edgar Degas, has already completed the target distance here. If the women’s field is looking for a new pair at the top, in August and September it is gathering not around Yulia and Gavrilova — Degas without them was closed by Sokol, Irina Guseva and Evgenia Travkina.
Tomorrow, 10 September, Petrov-Vodkin starts, 25 km. Both are still empty there. It is the nearest chance to put them side by side again — or for that not to happen again.
Why watch
The women’s field of season 263 does not rest on these two names: Sokol took Degas, Travkina closed Business Run on volume, Serebryannikova is accumulating Buenos Aires, Pochekutova is pulling away on kilometres. But in July the top formed exactly between Yulia and Gavrilova — two starts, twice the same order, not a single exception.
A year and a half in the league against nine months. Five overall wins for Yulia against six second places for Gavrilova — also a steadily high level, only so far without a single win. The career score is level all the same — 4–4, and all four of Gavrilova’s wins fell in the previous season: she knows how to beat Yulia, she simply has not done it once since 263 began. Depth 100 has already sent them into different standings. Sun and Petrov-Vodkin have not.
