Silver on the way to the Crystal Globe
Valeria Demidova continues to shine at half-pipe competitions at the stages of the World Cup. The 19-year-old athlete became the silver medalist in the American Mammoth and won the third medal for the season.
This week, Demidova took part in the winter Extreme Games in Aspen, where she took a very worthy seventh place - participation in this strongest tournament for freestyle and snowboard lovers is an achievement. Having moved to Mammoth, the Russian woman began her performance at the World Cup stage with a curiosity - in the qualification she fell and lost her ski. But thanks to other successful attempts, she got into the finals.
There Demidova carried out two excellent descents, for which she scored 80 and 89 points. She was not able to overtake Canada Casey Sharp, which the judges in the first attempt rated at 90 points, but also did not allow anyone to claim their silver. Remaining on the second line, the Russian woman strengthened her leadership in the overall standings of the World Cup in the half-pipe discipline. If at the final stage in Calgary Demidova takes a place no lower than fifth, then she will become the first Russian athlete in history to win the Crystal Globe in the Olympic freestyle discipline.
In Canada, a Mogul World Cup was taking place these days, at which the Russian team also had a chance to win a medal. 16-year-old Victoria Lazarenko for the first time in her short career yet reached the final of the competition. Due to mistakes in jumping, she failed to rise above sixth place.
Double silver sleigh riders
According to the results of the season, the sanatorium Tatyana Ivanova also claims a historic victory. At the World Cup stage in Oberhof, she climbed the podium for the eighth time. The 28-year-old Russian woman took second place, losing only 0.04 seconds to German Anna Burreiter, who won the first time.
At the same time, Ivanova was two places ahead of another representative of Germany, Julia Taubits, with whom she is fighting for Russia's first “Big Crystal Globe” in women's single sleigh. For two stages before the end of the season, she wins the German only 12 points - in luge this is a very unstable advantage.
In addition to Ivanova, Simon Pavlichenko became the silver medalist in Oberhof, repeating his best result this season in classic races. He climbed to second place from the 23rd after the first attempt. The Russian luge only lost to the owner of the track Johannes Ludwig. The leader of the overall standings, Roman Repilov, took eighth place, but thanks to the failure of the Italian Dominic Fischnaller, he managed to break even harder from him in the amount of cup points.
Two weeks later, the sleigh will have the main start of the season - the World Cup in Sochi. For the first time such competitions will be held in Russia.
Gold Sochi from Medvedev
Last weekend, Sochi hosted other significant competitions - the alpine skiing World Cup. Since the 2014 Olympic Games, the strongest skiers have not come to Rosa Khutor, although a year ago they had a similar opportunity, but due to the weather all the slopes were canceled.
This time, the competition program also had to make adjustments. Heavy snowfall forced the organizers to cancel the raffle medals. But the competition in the super giant went according to plan. Their winner was Italian Federica Brignone, who received the medal from the hands of former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The best of the Russians Yulia Pleshkova stopped a step away from the cup points, taking 31st place.
The triumph of the new generation in biathlon
The junior biathlon world championship did not determine the best team of young athletes. The national teams of Russia and Norway divided the first place in the medal standings, showing exactly the same result - five gold, three silver and one bronze award.
Two victories in the younger age category were won by Anastasia Shevchenko. She missed the sprint and pursuit race without mistakes, but allowing anyone to catch up with them in these disciplines. She also became the silver medalist in the relay race with Anastasia Khaliullina, who won gold in the individual race.
Member of the adult national team of Russia Karim Khalili for the third time in a row helped partners win gold in the relay. At the same time, he himself became the silver medalist in the pursuit, starting from fifth position. Another victory was won by Alexei Kovalev in the sprint competition among young men.
Young Short Track Medalists
The Italian Bormio hosted the World Junior Short Track Championships. Russian athletes have shown their best result in these competitions over the past six years. In their piggy bank there were three silver and two bronze medals.
One of the main characters in men's races was Vladimir Balbekov. He became the second at a distance of 500 meters, came to the finish line third at a distance half as long and, together with his partners, became the silver medalist in the relay, losing only to the South Koreans who broke the adult world record.
Two more medals were won by Anna Matveeva. She also became a bronze medalist in the 1000 meter race and, together with her teammates, finished second in the relay. By the number of medals, Russian athletes were second only to Korean short-trackers.
More champions 🥇were crowned today at the junior #shorttrack world championships in Bormio 🇮🇹!
Here are the winners of the day 💥😍:
1000m: Sun Long 🇨🇳 & Gilli Kim 🇰🇷
3000m relay: Netherlands women 🇳🇱 & Korea men 🇰🇷 # ShortTrackSkating # junior # worldspic.twitter.com / 6JaR13QtLq
Without medals in a skeleton
The Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Cup stage on the natural track in St. Moritz was unsuccessful for the Russian team. No one, even skeletonists, managed to climb the podium. Because of this, Alexander Tretyakov lost the lead in the overall standings to the Latvian Martins Dukurs, and Elena Nikitina completely dropped out of the top three. To remedy the situation they have only one step left in Sigulda.
But local success was achieved by Alexey Stulnev and Ilya Malykh. They took fourth place in the competition of twos. In this Bobsleigh discipline, Russians have not been so high since November 2017, when the crew of Alexander Kasyanov was next to the podium.