Alexander Bolshunov won 12 times in a row: “Everyone wants it, but I win a little more”

The Olympic champion tears apart the pelotons and standards at the National Cross-Country Cup

The question is already ripe: no one will be able to beat Alexander Bolshunov on the domestic ski track? It churns out gold after gold without interruption. Twelve races in a row does not give first place to anyone. And Elena Vyalbe says that he is still restraining himself.

The 4th stage of the Russian Ski Cup has ended in Kirovo-Chepetsk. There are as many winners as there are races in a season. The women’s leaders, despite Veronika Stepanova running ahead of everyone in the overall standings, are still changing on the track. Either Anastasia Faleeva will light it up, then Anastasia Kuleshova or Alena Baranova…

Men have complete stability. Delightful, surprising, familiar. Sorry, but even alarming – where is the competition? Unique is happiness. But there are situations, moods, well-being, after all.

Here Bolshunov wins the time trial at the Russian Cup stage, his tenth victory in a row. And here it’s not that he’s surprised, but somehow coach Yuri Borodavko thinks about it. He says: he didn’t think that “it would happen this year, there was a serious injury that did not allow him to train at full strength.” But now we see that he is gradually gaining shape, it is growing. So those first nine victories were without form?

And then Elena Vyalbe adds: “He even restrains himself a little, since he can win more in each race.”

On Saturday, December 23, there was a freestyle sprint at the Russian Cup stage. Veronika Stepanova won among women for the first time this season, leaving Anastasia Faleeva second and Elizaveta Pantrina third. She beat second place by 2.19 seconds and beat third place by 2.59 seconds. And Alexander Bolshunov let his rivals get closer: Savely Korostelev was 0.89 seconds behind, Alexander Terentyev was 1.31 seconds behind.

When the next day, on Sunday, I ran the first 30 km skiathlon of the season at the Russian Cup, the winner Nastya Kuleshova explained Veronika Stepanova’s gap of 57.7 seconds (Lidia Gorbunova was third, she had already exceeded more than a minute) in a live broadcast of the race. She said that she didn’t run the sprint, so she retained much more strength than Veronica.

But Bolshunov doesn’t miss the race at all. And he was extremely simple in his commentary, his answer fits any victory in the season: “The guys resisted, everyone wants to win, but I want a little more.”

This was his twelfth gold, silver went to Ilya Semikov, lost a little less than five seconds, bronze went to Savely Korostelev, a gap of a little less than 8 seconds. And after the finish, Semikov admitted: it is impossible to defeat Bolshunov yet. “I tried to force a fight on him, but he did everything playfully.” The word “for now” apparently gives the skier hope for the future. “Playfully” is a characteristic of Bolshunov’s raging victories this season. We continue, getting excited, to follow them. Almost like behind Ovechkin’s goals.