The biathlon competition program at the Spartakiad of the Strongest in Zlatoust continued on Friday with a mixed relay. True, with some delay. The race was supposed to start at 10:30 Moscow time, but due to frost, its start had to be moved to the middle of the day.
At the first stage, Irina Kazakevich set the pace. She worked cleanly on the bench and began to run away from her rivals, creating a lead of 12.4 seconds before the stand-up. The athlete’s second shooting traditionally did not work out: two additional rounds dropped the representative of the Sverdlovsk region to fourth place. The leaders were Polina Shevnina and Larisa Kuklina, who shot zero, as well as Victoria Slivko, who made one mistake.
However, Kazakevich did not remain among the laggards for long - she passed the baton to Natalia Shevchenko first. Moreover, Irina should not have taken part in the race at all and did not train the day before. However, she had to replace Tamara Derbusheva, who was ill.
“She has a low temperature - 37.5 °C. We decided to save it for the main relay,” the coach of the athletes, Mikhail Shashilov, explained to Match TV about the changes in the lineup.
On the last lap, Kuklina couldn’t keep up with the pace suggested by her rivals. The gap between Valeria Kayumova, who took the baton, was 20 seconds. But the girl on the counter went to the penalty loop and actually deprived her team of chances for awards, although the team from the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug was considered one of the favorites of the race.
At the second stage, Shevchenko and Anastasia Goreeva performed superbly. The biathletes immediately ran away from Ulyana Nigmatullina and walked the entire distance side by side. When lying down, both used an additional cartridge. And at the standing position, the representative of the Moscow region made a mistake, but managed to close the target while Shevchenko shot cleanly but slowly.
“Since yesterday it was -30 °C and today too, the snow is very frozen, just like flour, the skis don’t go uphill, but they went well downhill. Therefore, it was not possible to escape. I tried to put everything into the climb, somewhere in the sections I ran away, however, Nastya still rolled up from the descents, so it was not possible to bring much of a gap,” Shevchenko is quoted as saying by “Championship.”
At the end of the stage, Natalya Gerbulova from the Krasnoyarsk Territory rose to third place, having worked flawlessly on both firing lines. As for other teams, the girls from Bashkortostan performed frankly poorly. They fell a lap behind the leaders and deprived Anton Babikov and Eduard Latypov of the opportunity to at least try to correct the situation. The same thing happened with the team from St. Petersburg: Maxim Tsvetkov and Vasily Tomshin were unable to start.
At the first men's stage, Savely Konovalov, who will turn 20 only next week, ran for the Sverdlovsk region. At the same time, he consistently finds himself in the top 15 at the Spartakiad. However, individual racing and relay are completely different disciplines. And on the bench, the athlete could not cope with his excitement, going to the penalty loop. And Roman Surnev took first place, replacing Goreeva at the distance. He, however, was also not flawless, having used an additional cartridge.
The mistakes of his opponents allowed Yaroslav Kostyukov, who went into the distance after Gerbulova, to catch up with the leaders and join the fight for gold. He left the shooting range even a couple of seconds earlier than Konovalov.
On the stand, Surnev missed two targets the first time, but this did not significantly affect the balance of power. Except that the gap between Saveliy and Yaroslav, who worked cleanly, narrowed a little.
“The position was bad, I couldn’t cope with the pressure. Standing worked well, quickly for myself. I gave all my strength during the circle. How is competition with such elders? You can fight
(smiles)
. The coach today said to cope at the turn and not to lose too much on the track. I had good gliding for such weather,” Konovalov admitted at the finish.
The fate of gold was decided on the stage of the fourth stage. Kirill Streltsov, who took over the baton from Surnev, was forced to use all the extra ammunition, which allowed his namesake Bazhin to come out ahead. The created gap was enough for the representative of the Sverdlovsk region to win. On the stand, the biathlete hit the last target only on the third attempt, however, he went to the distance while his opponents continued to shoot.
“We were going to this victory and wanted it. Of course, this is biathlon. Anything could happen. We could not be sure of the first place; all sorts of nuances could happen. But our team looked strong today. It's good that everything turned out this way. The mistake at the last line with the last shot was our own. We need to fix it and that’s it,” Bazhin concluded.
There was also no serious fight for silver. Streltsov left the stadium with an advantage of 8.8 seconds over Evgeniy Sidorov, who replaced Kostyukov, and calmly held it. But the fans who supported the Krasnoyarsk Territory were clearly worried about the fate of the bronze, since the winner of the individual race was almost caught up by Alexander Loginov on the last lap, but he was a few meters short of the distance.
“There were thoughts that Loginov could catch up, and we would work with him at the finish, but I understood that I had a ten-second advantage, and I tried to give my best from the very beginning. On the last climb I heard someone approaching from behind. I thought I needed to give everything on the upswing, and on the flats - as it turns out. At the finish line he couldn’t get any closer,” Sidorov noted.
And the mixed relay ended with a little sad news: Matvey Eliseev announced his retirement from his sports career after the Spartakiad.
“Either today, or if I qualify for the men’s relay, then it will be my last race. Emotions? The joy is that I got a lot from biathlon and am now ready for a new life,” said Eliseev.