The skiing and biathlon “Race of Stars” in Luzhniki has already become a good tradition. This year, the entertainment competitions are taking place for the third time, and they once again brought together the leading athletes of previous years, not only from winter, but also from summer sports. A ski tournament took place on Saturday, the main part of which was attended by 30 mixed relay teams. Each of them had one adult and one young athlete. For children, participating in races side by side with titled Olympians can be a great impetus for further development in this sport.
Most of the participants were assigned to duets by a blind draw, but there were also purely family teams among those who started. So, Alexey Petukhov, now the head of the Ministry of Sports and Physical Culture of the Kursk Region, decided to compete for awards together with his son Ivan. The bronze medalist of the 2010 Olympics has a worthy successor, and it’s hard to expect anything else from a boy who was born exactly in the year of those very Games. Evgenia Shapovalova and Vitaly Denisov also took to the start line with their sons.
In addition to them, Alexander Panzhinsky, Evgeny Dementyev, Olga Rocheva, Dmitry Yaroshenko, Nikolai Bolotov, Natalya Matveeva, Mikhail Devyatyarov Jr., Anna Nechaevskaya and many others came out to compete for awards.
Already during the semi-finals the main favorites were determined. Thus, Panzhinsky’s partner was the winner of the all-Russian competition “Pionerskaya Pravda” Vyacheslav Smirnov, and they would have easily won their race if the silver medalist of the 2010 Olympic Games had not played to the audience in the last meters of the distance. While Alexander was waving to the audience, Petukhov passed him.
The second semi-final was won by Mikhail Devyatyarov and Roman Filippov by a large margin. Matveeva and Ivan Kalinin took second place, and Nechaevskaya and David Martirosyan took third place. Despite excellent readiness, the teams led by the silver medalist of the 2017 World Cup and the bronze medalist of the 2018 Olympic Games were unable to impose competition on the star men in the finals.
Panzhinsky, Petukhov and Devyatyarov fought in earnest at the distance, just like in the good old days, supported by the enthusiasm of their young partners. It is worth noting that all three professional skiers at one time trained with the same mentor - Yuri Kaminsky, so the new sparring was a pleasure for them. By the last round, the duet of Panzhinsky and Smirnov had earned themselves a significant lead, while Petukhov and Devyatyarov had only silver left to compete for. Mikhail, who was third on the track, accelerated and passed Alexey. Petukhov no longer had enough strength to respond.
“In my head I understood that I had to catch up with Misha, go out to the right or left and overtake. The head understands, but the muscles can’t,” the famous skier shared on Match TV.
Devyatyarov, in turn, said with a laugh that he did not expect such an intense fight and also admitted that his physical form does not allow him to fight with Panzhinsky, who constantly trains and runs about 100 km on skis every day.
“I thought they would wait for me and we’d approach the finish line calmly. And then some kind of tough race began. I thought: okay, I’ll take at least second position. To be honest, I was counting on the finish. I thought that I was the real Misha Devyatyarov from 2007, but it turned out to be a little different,” said the former Russian sprint champion.
Panzhinsky, in turn, could not resist making jokes about his rivals. He said that on the last lap he deliberately slowed down the pace so that Alexey and Mikhail believed that he was tired, and then he pulled with all his might. At the same time, he paid tribute to his young partner, who created a good foundation for such pranks.
“I didn’t plan the distance in any way, everything was done by Slava Smirnov, a cool guy who passed the baton to me first. My job was not to let him down, I included everything that I have and have accumulated over 34 years. This is the peak of my sports career! “You can leave with this,” Alexander commented on the race with a smile.
The second part of the day's program was the so-called celebrity race. In it, duets were made up of ski stars and simply famous personalities - athletes, journalists, officials. One of the participants was even test cosmonaut Anna Kikina, who partnered with Mikhail Devyatyarov Sr.
Olympic champion in athletics Yuri Borzakovsky, in turn, became a partner of Natalia Baranova, silver medalist of the 2018 Olympics in the team figure skating tournament Alexander Enbert - Larisa Kurkina, and the ideological inspirer of the Moscow Marathon Dmitry Tarasov teamed up with Olga Zaitseva.
As Enbert said on the eve of the start, he came to training at Luzhniki for several days in order to at least slightly master the free style of skating. After all, despite the similarity of names, a skate in skiing and in figure skating are completely different things.
As the race showed, Alexander failed to cope with the task well enough. If after the first stage of the relay, which Kurkina conducted, their team was in the top three, then after the skater left, they fell back to sixth place.
But not all skiers performed brilliantly. Thus, three-time Olympic champion Yulia Chepalova ran the starting stage completely last, losing even to Devyatyarov Sr., but he won his gold at the Games almost 36 years ago. The leadership was captured by Korosteleva’s team, paired with the head of the Moscow Department of Physical Culture and Sports, Alexey Kondarantsev. The duo did not give up their advantage to anyone until the finish.
“Still, the level of Olympic athletes is completely different. Some people are still actively training, while others, like me, are training purely for health and pleasure. Another league, one might say. I had a very strong partner with me - Alexey Alexandrovich did the whole race, one might say. Thank him very much! I felt better!” — shared Vancouver bronze medalist and mother of the rising star of Russian skiing Savelia Korosteleva.
And the teams of Zaitseva and Baranova fought for the silver award until the last moment. Everything was decided on the last lap, where Borzakovsky and Tarasov ran. The Olympic champion of Athens again did not betray himself - he started the race slowly, and at the finish he accelerated and overtook the representative of marathon running.
After the performance, the athlete admitted that the last time he skied was exactly a year ago at a similar tournament, but the muscle memory was preserved from his school years, so there were no difficulties with the technique.
“The professionals said that I rode quite well. We took second place, the result is obvious. <...> Congratulations to everyone on today’s holiday, the “Race of Stars” is wonderful. Another reason to meet your friends. I didn’t encounter winter sports that often during my sports career, but now it’s much more common. This cannot but rejoice,” Match TV quotes Borzakovsky.
On Sunday, the “Race of Stars” will continue with biathlon competitions, in which Ekaterina Yurlova-Perkht, Anton Shipulin, Olga Podchufarova, Ivan Tcherezov, Olga Zaitseva, Olga Nazarova, Andrey Makoveev, Dmitry Malyshko and many others are expected to participate.