Clash of skiers Ustyugov and Bolshunov: Alexander smashed his face

Olympic champions, carried away by internecine wars, flew past the sprint final in Krasnogorsk

So the two giants of cross-country skiing met again on the track … They call each other, no matter what happens, Seryoga and Sanya. When they collided, they both fell. Bolshunov hit his head, smashed his face, but was not injured. Ustyugov is also fine, admitted that he tried to fight “a little harder.” Neither of them made it to the finals. And Alexander Terentiev won the second victory in a row.

On the eve of the freestyle sprint at the Russian Cup stage in Krasnogorsk, Alexander Bolshunov, by the decision of the referee commission, nevertheless received a warning for “interfering with other participants.” He interfered, as you remember, with Sergei Ustyugov, who did not even shake hands with his colleague and called: “It’s good to do this already, it’s not human!” (Bolshunov rebuilt twice, interfering with Ustyugov, as a result, Sergei lost his rhythm of movement and was left without a medal).

Bolshunov was warned by the judges, but not disqualified (the contact was recognized as unintentional). Sasha agreed with the decision. And it was clear that the skiers, excited by the events of the season, simply could not hold an ordinary race. Battle planned. (It started with finding out who is the “bag” and who is not him, and at the fourth stage, Alexander cut off Sergei while overtaking in the sprint final, but then he apologized for not calculating the distance. On Sunday, Ustyugov did not even shake Bolshunov’s hand .)

On the day of the next sprint, Bolshunov and Ustyugov greeted each other. And they ran on the run. And then this happened: the skiers collided in the semi-final race, both fell and went in different directions. From each other and from the final.

Bolshunov’s version is as follows: he rode ahead, on the first descent Ustyugov pushed himself harder, stepped forward. But Alexander’s skis worked better. When he overtook Ustyugov, he began to push with his left ski and “straight in my direction, I realized that this was done on purpose. We fell.” Sasha said that he was not injured, but for some time he tried to recover, “did not understand where I was.” The track is tough, “I hit my face on the snow”, broke it to the point of blood. And – the conclusion: “Yes, everything is fine, just Seryoga, apparently, cannot let go of the situation.”

Sergey also told how it was. I tried to work “a little harder, within the rules.” When Alexander and I entered a turn, I “tried to cheer him up a little with my foot” so that he would stand wider, because he always entered this turn along a large radius. “But he did not understand me a little. I followed my own trajectory, it turned out that we collapsed. Whether the contact of the skis was, or the boot.

Why was a wide radius needed? Ustyugov spent all the races in this way, he didn’t leave for a small one, and then Alexander forced him out. “But I didn’t want to go to the inner radius because there was ice.” Sergey says that everything happened quickly, so you need to watch the replay “and ask Sanya, but when we fell, he cursed at me.” And the main words are these: “If the judges see my guilt, then it is so. But it wasn’t intentional.”

…And, you know what? Probably, such a fall, this flight-incident, which deprived both of them of the sprint finals, they needed. Maybe they will drop the negative, close the topic? And then the sport will remain, as coach Yuri Borodavko says, with a “cold head”. By the way, with a good, not spoiled face.

Yes, and the jury concluded that there was no one responsible for the fall. Nobody will be punished.