“Izhevsk Rifle” made Natalia Shevchenko rich: “My husband whined all evening”

The winner of the women’s 7.5 km sprint race at the fourth stage of the Russian Cup was Natalia Shevchenko. In second place is Anastasia Egorova with a lag of 10.3 seconds. In third place is Anastasia Batmanova (+20.0).

Natalia Shevchenko won the first Izhevsk Rifle race in her career. In the individual race, the track offended the biathlete: Natalia fell, fortunately, did not damage anything, but received abrasions. She fell on her back and, as she said, heard a hard crack, she even thought that the rifle stock had broken. Everything worked out, I finished fifth. The next day I was already at training in order to win gold in Izhevsk on Saturday.

In the sprint, the biathlete did not make a single mistake. And I didn’t consider it something unexpected: “I’ve already had a lot of races with zero results, especially since it’s a sprint.” Her speed and lack of penalties left no chance for herself or her rivals: only she should have the gold. Because, as the Match TV athlete said, “with two zeros to be further than a six, even a three, I think this is a bad result.”

The last lap after the shooting range, Shevchenko “worked to the maximum.” I didn’t really remember the fall, but I understood: the stadium was very snowy – “the main thing was not to fall, because my legs couldn’t hold me up anymore.”

By the way, if the winner of the men’s sprint, Belarusian Ivan Tulatin, recalled how his young wife expressed dissatisfaction with his shooting (“this level is even below the training of children and youth”), then Natalia remembered her husband and his motivation. “Yesterday my husband whined all evening about the fact that I fell and didn’t make it to the top three the day before yesterday. I told him: “Nothing, I’m winning the sprint.” And now I’ve won.”

And the husband himself, who is also the coach of the Russian national team Alexey Shevchenko, admitted that he would not make loud statements and would not call his wife the best biathlete in Russia. (Natalia Shevchenko won three gold medals at the Russian Championship last season, and this season she is the leader in the overall standings of the Russian Cup). But I stated: I motivate her to fight for all the points in every race, because she doesn’t need to stop there.

Natalia said that she shot through the snow “longer than average.” It’s interesting that not only the winner, but also the sprint medalists made no mistakes. But Anastasia Goreeva, who won gold in the individual race, again missed twice, but finished only fifth. Coach Artem Istomin said that Goreeva has some muscle and ligament problems, so the biathlete is not running at full speed now. But “before the Spartakiad there will be time to recover.”

Victoria Slivko also made two mistakes, Irina Kazakevich had four, as did Elizaveta Kaplina, Tamara Derbusheva had five, she ended up in 31st place.

4th stage of the Russian Cup, Izhevsk

Women’s sprint

1. Natalia Shevchenko – 24.55.2 (0)

2. Anastasia Egorova – 10.3 (0)

3. Anastasia Batmanova – 20.0 (0)

4. Polina Shevnina – 35.3 (1)

5. Anastasia Goreeva – 57.7 (2)

6. Victoria Slivko – 1.05.6 (2)

7. Valeria Kayumova – 1.12.4 (2)

8. Natalya Gerbulova – 1.12.7 (1)

9. Irina Kazakevich – 1.30.1 (4)

10. Ksenia Shneider – 1.49.3 (1)

11. Elizaveta Kaplina – 1.54.6 (4)

12. Ksenia Dovgaya – 2.16.6 (2)

13. Polina Plyusnina – 2.17.5 (1)

14. Ekaterina Noskova – 2.17.7 (3)