The double of skeletonists, the victory of the sleigh riders, the “harvest” of gold in ice skates: the Russians triumphantly performed in winter sports

Skeleton

The most successful sport of the week for Russians was skeleton. Like a month ago in Lake Placid, Alexander Tretyakov and Elena Nikitina at the same time became the winners of the competition on the track in French La Plana, where the bobsledders and skeletonists did not come for seven years.

Tretyakov already in his first attempt broke the track record for half a second, which belonged to the Latvian Martins Dukurs, who in these competitions became the silver medalist. Despite the fact that Dukurs did not win this season, and Tretyakov has already won two golds, the Russian is still inferior to the Latvian in the overall standings of the competition. The third place was shared by Chinese Geng Wenjiang and Korean Yoon Sung Bin - they showed exactly the same time in both attempts.

Nikitina also broke the record of the French track, which held for as long as 20 years. The Russian woman in the second attempt was one and a half seconds faster than a long time ago Briton Alex Cumber, who kept the oldest record in the skeleton. Following Nikitina, the Austrian Janine Flock and the German Jacqueline Löling, who in general stand above the current winner of the World Cup, are on the podium.

Tobogganing

The sledges also won several medals at the World Cup in Altenberg. The first on the podium were the two of Alexander Denisiev and Vladislav Antonov. After the starting attempt, they were only tenths, but their second descent turned out to be the fastest among all participants. Thanks to this, the Russians became bronze medalists.

Tatyana Ivanova continues to struggle with the only strong German sledger Julia Taubits. This time the hostess of the track won, and the Russian athlete became the second right after her. In the overall standings of the World Cup, Ivanova maintained her leadership, but it was reduced to only two points. Other girls also performed well in Altenberg - Ekaterina Katnikova showed the fourth result, and Victoria Demchenko the sixth.

Roman Repilov had hardly lost his first place in the men's classification. He showed only the tenth result due to failure in the first attempt. But his main rival, Jonas Muller, who took 32nd place, was even worse, so Repilov’s leadership in the dispute over the Big Crystal Globe remained undeniable.

In the team relay race, along with Ivanova, Denisiev and Antonov, Semyon Pavlichenko, who took fifth place in the men's single sleigh, performed. Together, they presented the main sensation of the World Cup stage - they defeated the German team and won gold. The two best teams in luge shared only 0.013 seconds.

Snowboard

Russian snowboarders submitted the first gold of the current season. Its owner was Andrei Sobolev, who won the parallel giant slalom competition in Swiss Scuol. For him, the local resort can be called happy - a year ago Sobolev already won, ahead of everyone both in qualification and in the playoffs. This time, he completely repeated his success, never once reaching the finish line behind anyone. In addition to Sobolev, only Dmitry Karlagachev overcame the qualification, but in the first round he had to give in to a stronger compatriot.

Enjoy men's big final from the FIS Snowboard Alpine World Cup event in Scuol with Andrey Sobolev 🇷🇺 reaching for his first victory of the season after some extremely exciting head-to-head battle against Benjamin Karl 🇦🇹 # fissnowboardpic.twitter.com / nTrfwsCsHA

The girls' representation of Russia in the tournament bracket was more extensive, and the consequence of this is that for the first time in ten years, two athletes climbed onto the podium. The main sensation was presented by 16-year-old Sofia Nadyrshina - at her fifth stage of the World Cup, she unexpectedly reached the final. She could have won if the best snowboarder of the season Ramona Theresia Hofmeister hadn’t reached the race for gold, who eventually won her third start in a row. Bronze was won by Milena Bykova, who a year ago was in first place.

Women's big final run from today's competition in Scuol with Ramona Hofmeister 🇩🇪 going for PGS hat-trick against the World Cup rookie Sofia Nadyrshina 🇷🇺 # fissnowboardpic.twitter.com / UNE1KfqsaG

Skating

The European Championship in Speed ​​Skating was held in the Dutch Heerenveen. Russian athletes shared almost all the gold with the hosts and won medals in all disciplines except the women's mass start.

The hero of the competition was Pavel Kulizhnikov. Having recovered from all his injuries, he won three gold in the 500 and 1000 meter races, as well as in the team sprint along with Ruslan Murashov and Viktor Mushtakov. At the same time, the Russian athlete showed phenomenal results - at his longest distance he broke the world record for lowland skating rinks, showing the time 1: 07.09.

Russia win a second 🥇 on Day 2 at #EuroSpeed ​​2020, Pavel Kulizhnikov 🇷🇺 setting a new championship record of 34.38 seconds in the men's 500m in Heerenveen ⛸️👏👏👏 # SpeedSkatingpic.twitter.com / x4W7d33vDf

The Russians did not succeed in stayer disciplines. Denis Yuskov also won three medals, but none of them was gold - only two silver medals in the team pursuit and the 1500 meter race, as well as the bronze of the five-kilometer race, unexpected for him. Danila Semerikov was content with the bronze in the mass start and won the silver medal of the pursuit race with Yuskov and Alexander Rumyantsev.

Two gold won Olga Fatkulina. First, she, together with Angelina Golikova and Daria Kachanova, showed the best seconds for ice rinks at sea level in the team sprint, and then won the 500-meter victory. In other disciplines, Russian girls were unlucky unlucky - they were constantly inferior to the Dutch in a gold dispute. Kachanova became the silver medalist at a distance of 1000 meters, Evgenia Lalenkova and Natalya Voronina twice were second in the team pursuit and in personal disciplines. Ekaterina Shikhova took two bronzes from Heerenveen, won in 1000 and 1500 meter races.

Olga Fatkulina 🇷🇺 wins the first 🥇 of Day 2 of #EuroSpeed, edging defending champion Vanessa Herzog 🇦🇹 into 🥈 in the 500m. ⛸️ # SpeedSkatingpic.twitter.com / ZZcTQiRgOA

Ski race

After the Tour de Ski, distance skiers had a little rest - the next stage of the World Cup in Dresden was sprinting, and mainly short-distance runners gathered at it. At the same time, the best sprinter of the planet, Johannes Hösflot Klebo, missed the competition, so Alexander Bolshunov saved the yellow jersey of the World Cup leader until the next starts.

In the absence of the Norwegian, the Russians failed to fight for medals in their personal sprint. Gleb Retivykh reached the semifinals, but ended up in a slower race. Taking third place, he could not go further as a varnish-loser and in the end became only the best among those who did not qualify for the final. The victory was won by the Frenchman Luke Shanava, who also took advantage of the fact that Klebo did not come to the World Cup stage in Planica.

But in team competitions, the Russians climbed the podium. The final, which the Retivs reached with Andrei Krasnov, was held in a new format - each athlete went the distance six times instead of the usual three. By the last change of the Relay, the Retivy ended up at the end of the top five, so he could not get involved in a gold dispute with the French and Swedes, but won bronze due to the fastest lap.

The girls from the Russian team were far from the medal draw. Mostly young athletes went to Dresden, for whom reaching the decisive stage of the competition was already an event. Khristina Matsokina took 19th place in personal competitions, and in the team, along with Nina Dubotolkina, she became sixth.

Youth Olympics

On January 9, the third Youth Winter Olympic Games started in Lausanne, Switzerland. According to the results of three days, Russian athletes climbed to second place in the medal standings in terms of won awards and the amount of gold.

On Saturday, the biathletes took the double. The first to the highest step of the podium was Alyona Mokhova, who won the individual race. Despite two misses, a native of the Krasnoyarsk Territory was one of the fastest among all the participants and for a whole minute passed the silver medalist Jeanne Richard from France. After some time, the success of Mokhovoy was repeated by Oleg Domichek. He was also not absolutely accurate, but he had enough speed to win gold.

The next day, skaters began to win medals. In pair skating, Apollinaria Panfilova and Dmitry Rylov won. So far they have not learned how to perform triple jumps, but the judges really liked their other paired elements - in a free program for a triple twist of the fourth level, the pair received only fives. In total, Panfilova and Rylov scored 199.21 points high for juniors. The silver medalists were Diana Mukhametzyanova and Ilya Mironov, who had a higher technical base, but they lost almost 24 points in two leases.

In men's skating, Andrei Mozalev and Daniil Samsonov had a chance to take the first two places too - they showed exactly this result after a short program. But both of them did not manage to avoid falls and undercooling in arbitrary, to gain a foothold in their places. They both lost to the Japanese Yuma Kagiyama, who, with two good four-piece sheepskin coats, celebrated the victory.