Biathletes grabbed each other’s teeth: the Ufa stage of the Commonwealth Cup pleased with the fight

The mass start showed the capricious nature of the entire biathlon. Among the men, the pedestal suddenly did not see the leader of the leaders Eduard Latypov and Anton Smolsky, who generally met with failure in Ufa. But he pleased Alexander Loginov and Anton Babikov, who dealt with each other already at the finish line, unconditionally giving victory to the Belarusian Dmitry Lazovsky.

Dmitry Lazovsky the day before – in the pursuit race – turned out to be innocently guilty and lost a lot of nerve cells during shooting. At first, no one understood anything, including Dmitry himself, who managed to make only two shots and discovered that three more targets had already been closed. A self-assembled target is, of course, wonderful, but there are also rules that had to be quickly projected onto the situation.

And the situation was quite simple: during the third shooting of the race, Petr Pashchenko mistakenly fired several shots at someone else’s installation, that is, precisely Lazovsky’s installation. As a result, while Dmitry was figuring out what to do at the shooting range with a self-assembly, he wasted time. After the race, the result of the men’s pursuit at the Commonwealth Cup had to be corrected by the judges who had already figured it out, but not immediately. First, 1 minute 10 seconds was subtracted from the Belarusian athlete’s result, which allowed him to take fourth place and stand in front of Alexander Loginov. But then fourth place went to Loginov, and Lazovsky ended up in sixth position.

In short, Lazovsky approached the mass start 100 percent charged in order to determine his real place in the glorious Russian-Belarusian company of the strongest biathletes. That’s what he said himself: after the pursuit race there was an unpleasant internal pressure. Like, they put me in fourth place – I even felt ashamed, it was as if I didn’t deserve this place. And when they reviewed the results and put me in sixth place, I calmed down, “went to training and promised myself that I would give soot in the mass start!”

And he gave it! He ran fast and shot well. Was able to cope at the shooting range, making only two misses. He explained very clearly: “I’m still not a teapot.” And he didn’t look at what was happening behind him, he looked at the flag and smiled.

And behind them, Loginov and Babikov were vying for second and third place. They walked side by side, and almost before the finish, Loginov was in front. And from the outside it seemed that he had bypassed Babikov, somehow quite easily and naturally. Anton even had to answer the question: did he let Loginov pass ahead on purpose? He replied that, of course not, he was just tired. Moreover, Loginov turned out to be faster tactically. “I thought that it would be more convenient to go into the turn to the left, but when I moved to the left, I saw that Sasha Loginov had also already entered the straight, moving in his direction would be ugly and wrong.”

And then everyone heard another confession from Babikov. Not everyone can praise someone else’s talent; it is not for nothing that it is generally accepted that athletes are selfish, focused solely on themselves. It’s all the more pleasant to face an exception: “Every morning I hear from Loginov that he is not ready, he won’t go anywhere, he won’t have breakfast,” Babikov told Match TV. “And then you watch him drive away from you.” It’s not his skill level, it’s his talent.”

And Loginov, who, after missing the starts of last season, searching for health and motivation, after thinking that it was time to end the story of an active biathlete, after the first podium that happened at the Russian Cup this season, is again pulling out the best qualities from himself. Having become second in the mass start, Sasha agreed: the race was not easy, from the first lap the members of the team (and Loginov is not one of them) began to tighten the pace, he had to catch up, waste energy, adapting to a pace that was not his own.

And when he left for the finish and was informed that Anton was following him, he walked at his own pace and realized: “I won’t be able to jerk on the circle.” And it turns out that all he had to do was show his strong side: “I think I could have pulled it off closer to the finish line, sprinted on the plain.” As Loginov says, his power has gone in any case, but his sprinting abilities have not gone away yet.

Which is what he showed. But there wasn’t much strength left to “try to speed up the finishing lap,” so Alexander no longer had any thoughts of catching up with Lazovsky. “Even if the skis were two heads faster than his, it would still be difficult.”

Eduard Latypov and Daniil Serokhvostov, having broken away from everyone else at a fast pace at the beginning of the race, then distinguished themselves in shooting. Serokhvostov had seven total misses, Latypov had six, and Kirill Bazhin, a biathlete from the top 3 of the previous races, missed five times (he finished 13th). True, this did not cancel the battle between Latypov and Serokhvostov, even if it was for eighth place: Daniil won.

Slivko didn’t give up her T-shirt

This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Before the start, biathlete Victoria Slivko addressed her yellow leader’s jersey: “Well, little yellow one, let’s work together until the end.” Mike seemed to have heard and drawn conclusions. Remains with the leader of the Commonwealth Cup; the biathlete was almost flawless in the last race of the year.

After winning the mass start, Victoria admitted that missing the last shot was due to fatigue. “Because I really want it, and I understand that I’m very ready. Probably, my extreme mood even hindered me. I really wanted to.” Although this miss did not interfere, since Slivko heard that her competitor Natalya Gerbulova was missing, and she also knew that there was a large gap from third place. She said that with this knowledge she walked calmly, but still “I pushed hard on the finishing lap – because Nastya Egorova did not let me relax.” And Nastya worried her to such an extent that Victoria did not even dare to take the flag to the finish line: “I was scared, I thought that Egorova might pass me and I would be second with the flag.”

At this last shooting, where Slivko faltered slightly, Natalya Gerbulova missed two targets. While she was serving her penalties, Anastasia Batmanova and Anastasia Egorova pulled up. Nastya Goreeva and Ksenia Dovga also left the shooting range together with Gerbulova. And everything was decided by the speed on the ski track. Egorova went ahead, ahead of Batmanova on the climb, and finished second without any problems. But Natalya Gerbulova simply snatched bronze at the finish line.

After the mass start, Natalya said that as the distance progressed, she understood that she could fight for a medal. And if she can get closer to third place on the last descent, then she should be able to handle it at the finish line. Why? “Because as a child I accelerated a lot. Thanks to my dad for this. At the finish line, if I cut myself off with someone, it’s hard. Only Katya Noskova can probably compete.” And when I came to the last stand, of course, I hoped that it would work to zero, that I could handle it. But, alas, it didn’t turn out that way. Although there is a medal.

In general, Natalya Gerbulova concluded, now she, like the entire group, is still at the stage when they are “smoothly processing” all the work they have done. And the mass start turned out to be difficult, because the track is narrow and there are a lot of people. And the biathlete herself today was “not so daring, more balanced – she let someone through, slowed down somewhere, so that there would be no bad situations for herself and for someone else.”

Anastasia Goreeva took fifth place (with three penalties) and told what Karim Khalili shouted to her before the last shooting (he himself came tenth in the mass start): I believe in you! And then, at the finish line, he shouted again: “let’s take them apart, occupy the inner radius.” Nastya admitted: she wanted to do as the groom ordered, but she couldn’t. Because “the girls are all so tactful, they blocked my passage, closed the gate – and I gave up without strength.”

Although she described her overall condition as excellent, she did not calculate her strength for the finishing push. “I thought that on the steep climb the girls had already unhooked, but they clung to me with all their teeth and all their last strength.” She understood that at the finish line she was no longer a fighter: “probably any athlete here will be able to sort me out, because I’m more of a distance runner than a sprinter.” And I was left with the conclusion: I should have run away earlier.

And, having told about Khalili’s help, she was immediately forced to answer the question: when will he himself get everything right in his biathlon readiness? She answered succinctly, but succinctly: when she gets the shooting going. (Coach Artem Istomin commented on Khalili’s failures as follows: after the New Year, the biathlete will feel normal both functionally and in shooting terms.) And she admitted that her shooting also went wrong in Ufa. Both she and the experts are looking for the reason and will continue to look for it.

But Nastya Egorova, on the wave of success, admitted something else: she was gradually getting into optimal shape. “I’m starting to accelerate, it’s visible, it’s noticeable, I feel it.” And she also loves climbs, so on the very first climb Nastya Batmanova “caught up, ate and ran away.” And yes, she promised that after the break she would run even faster. “I’ll train for two weeks and then go into battle.”

Commonwealth Cup

Overall standings (6 races out of 12)

Women

1. Victoria Slivko (Russia) – 669

2. Irina Kazakevich (Russia) – 622

4. Tamara Derbusheva (Russia) – 596

5. Anastasia Shevchenko (Russia) – 591

3. Natalia Shevchenko (Russia) – 585

8. Anastasia Batmanova (Russia) – 562

6. Ekaterina Noskova (Russia) – 562

7. Anastasia Goreeva (Russia) – 560

9. Ksenia Dovgaya (Russia) – 541

10. Elizaveta Kaplina (Russia) – 510

Men:

1.Eduard Latypov (Russia) – 642

2. Anton Smolsky (Belarus) – 605

3.Dmitry Lazovsky (Belarus) – 584

4.Kirill Bazhin (Russia) – 548

5. Anton Babikov (Russia) – 513

6. Alexander Povarnitsyn (Russia) – 507

7.Ilya Avseenko (Belarus) – 504

8.Roman Eremin (Russia) – 497

9.Kirill Streltsov (Russia) – 494

10. Maxim Vorobey (Belarus) – 466