How biathletes Latypov and Kornev sat in the bath, and Serokhvostov disobeyed the coaches

Alexander Kornev became the winner of the sprint race at the fourth stage of the Russian Cup in Ufa. Maxim Tsvetkov is in second place, Daniil Serokhvostov is bronze, Anton Babikov is with a wooden medal, Andrey Vyukhin is fifth, Nikita Porshnev is sixth. What is interesting – all with clean shooting. But Latypov was let down by just two shots past, he is in seventh place. Karim Khalili is the eleventh.

Alexander Kornev, who performs at the senior level for the first season, was one second ahead of Maxim Tsvetkov. Both admitted that they endured at a distance with all their might, but the finish line still let Tsvetkov down: his legs were already cramping.

After the sprint, Kornev said that he had clean shooting – and the entire top six shot to zero in the sprint – he already had two years ago. Then there was always something missing at the shooting range. “Maybe there was just not enough calmness at the turn. He came in prostration, started, it was impossible to switch, ”he admitted to Match TV.

But this time, although the race turned out to be not the easiest – apparently, fatigue from the previous stages is already affecting, Alexander managed to cope, as he says, 10 out of 10. And he tried to endure it to the maximum on the track, and endured it until the last shot at the turn . Alexander’s victory pleased not only the biathlete himself, but also the head of the RRF Viktor Maigurov: a reserve is beginning to appear, which will soon join the main team.

And yet – the champion, it turns out, was helped by Eduard Latypov. Moreover, valuable advice was given in the bath. “Edik, how do you shoot zero so quickly, I, for some reason, sit and sit, waiting for this zero. He says: he just calmed down, started a little, clarified, squeezed. With these recommendations, Kornev went to the distance.

He did everything as Latypov said. And something happened that was brewing, in speed Kornev had long been getting close to the podium, but the shooting let him down. True, here it is – the irony of fate: Latypov himself just made two mistakes, as a result he ended up in seventh place.

The joy of victory turned out to Kornev with an admixture of surprise: he was always told that if you shoot cleanly, then you run very easily, because you have already simplified your life. But – not this time, “I ran out and realized that it was hard for me,” but I had to work out to the last meters.

Maxim Tsvetkov returned to the podium. The second place in a second from the winner showed that the training course was taken in the right direction: it was brought just in time for the stage in Ufa. Maxim said that this year there were problems that had to be overcome: “perhaps at some points I lost motivation, especially when I was sick for a very long time.” He believes that the training process itself was built correctly. But in any case: “I myself am to blame, I myself am the head coach, only I myself can be responsible for the result.”

Daniil Serokhvostov, who missed the individual race in Ufa due to illness, went to the start of the sprint and even ended up with a medal. But his entry to the start caused controversy. Coach Artem Istomin admitted that the staff was against Daniil competing, because even the day before the athlete felt the consequences of the disease: “today is not the day to go out.”

But Serokhvostov did not agree (although he was literally haunted by illness this season). The coaches had to accept the “initiative” of the biathlete, hoping that one race would not bring much harm, and then he would recover. True, Istomin does not hide the fact that the desire to escape in any state cannot be called commendable.

By the way, after the individual race, in which he became fourth, Karim Khalili, who was training with Serokhvostov, noticed: today the fight is not only on the track, but also in the rooms – whoever gets to the track healthy will not catch any infection and will be able to run through all the competitions .

The head coach of the national team Yuri Kaminsky believes that our biathlon, despite the lack of international starts, is on the rise: “The loss of so many good athletes hit the World Cup, I think we definitely have 8-10 of them now.” Kaminsky says that at the World Cup Russia could put up two squads at once, while both would look decent. “Those who are now in the top 10 in the Russian Cup are no worse than the fifth or sixth numbers of the French or German teams.”