Gold in a short track and a double victory in a sleigh: how did the Russians perform in winter sports

Skating

The skaters had one of the main starts of this season - the world championship at separate distances. For four days, they raffled off awards in 16 types of program in German Inzelle.

For the Russian team, the results of these competitions turned out to be contradictory. On the one hand, the athletes managed to harvest a crop of 11 medals at once - this was a record for the country. The two-digit number of awards previously conquered only the Netherlands and Germany.

On the other hand, there were fewer gold medals than fans could have expected during the season. Only Ruslan Murashov climbed the 500-meter spotlessly to the highest step of the podium. Instead of him, the bronze was won by Viktor Mushtakov, conducting the first season with the main team. World Cup leader Pavel Kouzhniknikov made a mistake when changing his legs on a turn and lost too much time to be higher than seventh place.

✏️ Murashov (RUS) steals thunder of his compatriot Kulizhnikov
🔗 https://t.co/xhVe04REC7
# ⃣ # WorldSpeed ​​# SpeedSkatingpic.twitter.com / vvluIUqCe4

Kuluzhnikov failed and the race for 1000 meters - at the last corner, when the Russian was to finish on an unusual external track, he suddenly just stopped for a few seconds, after which he continued to run. As he said later, it seemed to him that he had violated the rule for changing tracks, although this was not the case. As a result, only bronze in the team sprint, won together with Murashov and Mushtakov, became the only trophy of Kulizhnikov.

In general, all the other medals that Russian skaters received were exceptional bronze. In the collection of Natalia Voronina there were just three of them. She took third place in the 3000 and 5000 meters race - in both cases it was the first awards in Russian history at these distances. Voronina won the most difficult 5 km race with a Russian record, although the track in Inzelle is not considered a high mountain one. Also, the 24-year-old skater won bronze in the team race with Elizaveta Kazelina and Yevgenia Lalenkova. Two days later, Kazelina also won a historical medal - in the mass start.

Two awards took Danila Semerikov. Another athlete, who can be called the opening of the current season, broke the record of Russia at a distance of 10,000 meters and took third place. Prior to that, he climbed to the same level of the podium with Alexander Rumyantsev and Sergey Trofimov in the team race - in this discipline Russia had no medals for seven years.

Finally, the bronze medal went to Russian skaters in those types where they clearly claimed more. Olga Fatkulina, Angelina Golikova and Daria Kachanova took the third place in the first team sprint competitions at the World Championships. The same result showed world record holder at a distance of 1500 meters Denis Yuskov.

Freestyle and snowboard

In the US state of Utah, the world snowboarding and freestyle championship is coming to an end. Only the medals in the snowboard slopestyle remained undeclared. But now we can say that the Russian national team ranked high in third place overall, behind only the founders of both sports in the USA and Canada.

19-year-old Dmitry Loginov won two gold medals, becoming the youngest snowboarder in history to take the championship double in slalom disciplines. Maxim Burov rewrote another age record - he became a world champion in ski acrobatics at the age of 20. At the same time, they were pleased with medals and the Russians - Natalya Soboleva became the second in the parallel giant slalom, and Lyubov Nikitina won silver in acrobatics.

After all these successes, the medals for the Russians did not end. On February 7, the first team tournament in ski acrobatics took place, which in three years will become the Olympic discipline. The Russians had excellent chances of winning, but she was suddenly won by Swiss skiers. The mistake of Stanislav Nikitin on the landing also led to the fact that the silver went to the Chinese team. Together with Burov and his sister Lyubov he became the bronze medalist.

Recently, the mogul became a problem for the Russian freestyle discipline - during the whole season no one showed such results that would allow them to hope for medals at the World Championships. But the newly-formed leader of the women's team, 16-year-old Anastasia Smirnova, managed to make a small miracle. She made it to the big final and finished fourth. Such results at major starts none of the Russian girls showed more than a year.

A chance to prove himself could be Anastasia Tatalin, serving in ski slopestyle. A young athlete is progressing with each passing month and has clearly grown to the first serious medals in his career. But her competitions were canceled due to bad weather, although the men managed to play their awards.

Short track

The last stage of the World Cup was held in short track. The final big start before the World Cup was hosted by Turin. Russian athletes were waiting for the last moment to please the results - they managed to win medals only in the relay races.

The new mixed race was once again happy for the Russians. Ekaterina Efremenkova, Semyon Yelistratov, Pavel Sitnikov and Evgenia Zakharova won the 2000 meter relay, in which in three years time Olympic medals will be played. This success was for Russians the second in a row at the World Cup.

There is a battle between Canada and Russia in the Mixed Relay! 🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/Ka5FqT1Wvb

Following the bronze medals won the girls - the company Efremenkova in the finals were Ekaterina Konstantinova, Emina Malagich and Sofia Prosvirnova. In this race, the Korean women were disqualified, and this led to the fact that for the first time in Russian women won the overall World Cup record in the relay.

Completed the competition program men's relay. Semyon Elistratov, Pavel Sitnikov, Alexander Shulginov and Denis Hayrapetyan managed to win the first victory in two years - at that time Victor An.

Another relay win in the Men's 5000m Relay in Torino! 🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/0bbAY9P7X1

The personal competitions did not bring the medals to the Russians, but since this was the last stage of the World Cup, the results of the overall disciplines were summed up. Here, too, was not without a historical event - Sofia Prosvirnova became the first Russian woman to take the second prize. Before her, the best was the fourth result of Tatiana Borodulina at a distance of 1000 meters in the 2005/2006 season.

Luge

The last but one stage of the Luge World Cup took place in Oberhof, which also had the status of the European Championship. Oberhof is traditionally considered to be the most impregnable track for athletes from all over the world - here German luge often do not share medals with anyone.

But over the past two years, Semyon Pavlichenko and Roman Repilov managed to rise to the second step of the podium of honor once in a while. A new attempt to try on now two sets of awards turned into a triumph - after the first attempt, both Russians took the lead, and following the second descent, they only swapped places. Pavlichenko became the champion of Europe in a single sleigh for the fourth time, which was a repetition of the Martin Dietze record, which has been held since 1938. Repilov won the silver medal for the second time.

During the awards ceremony a funny incident happened to the Russian lugers. The organizers could not deliver the melody of the Russian anthem, and then the athletes sang it themselves without music. The head coach of the Russian national team Albert Demchenko told in a conversation with RT how it happened.

“They sang the hymn simply from the heart. From the first time, the person who was responsible for the music at the award did not find our anthem. We immediately answered with the whole team: “Do not look further, we will do everything ourselves.” And the whole friendly crowd performed it a cappella. It was a team decision, only Semyon and Roman were in the video, but everyone sang, ”Demchenko said.

Pavlichenko, thanks to his victory, now has a good chance of winning the overall World Cup standings. He is only ten points behind Johannes Ludwig before the final stage in Sochi, where both the classic races and the sprint race will take place.

Other Russian lugers had no chance to sing the national anthem - the medals of the European Championship no longer obeyed to anyone. Tatyana Ivanova showed the best result among the girls, becoming the sixth, and Alexander Denisyev and Vladislav Antonov took the fifth position in the men's double sleigh. Together with Pavlichenko, they also became fifth in the team relay.

Winter Triathlon

In the Italian city of Asiago, the Winter Triathlon World Championship took place - a sport in which participants must overcome the distance by bike, jogging and skiing. The best in this winter all-around were the Russians. The winner in the men's race was Pavel Andreev, who can already be considered the legend of the winter triathlon. He won the world championship for the seventh time in a row. Immediately behind him finished Dmitry Bregude.

Pavel Andreev is the king of the world and he has wondered out on Asia and his Mirak Rauchfuss (CZE) in third pic pic.twitter.com/Mg1eBG6zHX

Women had no equal to Darya Rogozina, who at the same time became a world champion among athletes under 23 years old. She was almost four minutes ahead of the winner of the last two championships, Julia Surikova.

After the individual competitions, the relay took place, and the Russians in it, too, did not leave anyone a chance. Andreev and Rogozin won for themselves one more gold medal, and Bregeda and Surikova were content with silver again.

Ski race

The main part of the Russian national skiing team is preparing for the World Championships in Seefeld, which will begin on February 19. Therefore, the second echelon sprinters and remote controllers came to the World Cup stage in Finnish Lahti, especially since the competition program was arranged exactly for the first ones. However, from the Russian skiers no one managed to cling to the medals.

In the individual races, Gleb Retivev showed himself the best in the skating style. He reached the final, but by the last race he began to experience fatigue. The leader of the Russian sprinter managed to restrain the peloton led by Johannes Klebo for half the distance, but when the opponents decided to inflate the pace, Retive did not survive. In the end, he came to the finish line sixth.

In team competitions, the Russians lacked a little bit of prizes. In the women's final, Tatiana Aleshina and Yevgeny Shapovalov tried to compete with eminent rivals, but when it came to drawing medals, they missed two Swedish duos and one Norwegian. In men, Gleb Retivev tried to show himself, although he had to run using unusual classical techniques. Time after time he played back the backlog created by Artem Maltsev, but did not get to the leadership trio - the Russians finished fourth.

Curling

The most interesting event for the Russian curlingists of the week was the tournament of mixed pairs in Aarau with a prize fund of 7 thousand Swiss francs. All the strongest duets that claim to go to the World Championship gathered on it: Anastasia Moskaleva - Alexander Eremin, Alina Biktimirova - Timur Gadzhihanov and Maria Komarova - Daniel Goryachev.

All of them reached the semifinals, but were left without gold medals. An experienced Hungarian couple Ildiko Sekeres - Gyorgy Nagy, who won the World Cup medals, reached the final match and defeated Moskaleva and Eremina in it.

Ski jumping

Flying skiers have all the thoughts in the upcoming world championship. But at the same time they try not to miss their starts in the World Cup. In men and women, stages were held in Lahti and Lubno in Slovenia. Again, the correspondence dispute within the Russian team was won by the girls - they were very close to the medals.

Good results brought the second personal tournament for women. After the first attempt, Alexandra Kustova unexpectedly ranked third, the sixth was Sofia Tikhonova, and the team leader Lydia Yakovleva was ninth. The second jump made big adjustments - Kustova dropped to the eighth line, Yakovleva climbed to the fifth, and Tikhonova stayed with her positions. If Russians continue to compete this way, they will have a chance at a medal in the team tournament at the World Championships in Seefeld.

The men's team remains hope only for Evgeny Klimov, who missed the stage in Lahti. In his absence, none of the Russians did not get into the first 30 of the personal tournament, and in the team the compatriots took the last tenth place.