“This is absolute unpreparedness”: what is the reason for the failure of the women's biathlon team at the KM stage in Ruhpolding

Six misses and 2.5 minutes backlog

The women's relay turned out to be a real failure for the Russian team. Domestic biathletes showed the worst 11th result of the current season and lost two minutes and 33.8 seconds to victorious Norway. Even a successful shooting did not help. At the borders of the Russians made only six mistakes. In this component, only Chinese women (three doppatrons) and representatives of Switzerland, who won bronze (four), were ahead of them.

The lag of the team at a distance turned out to be frightening. Only Irina Starykh, speaking at the second stage, managed the speed of her rivals. The rest experienced huge problems. Arriving for the baton from the IBU Cup, Evgenia Pavlova managed to lose 50 seconds with her feet in the first stage and showed 21st speed among 25 participants in the first stage.

But Kristina Reztsova and Ekaterina Yurlova-Perkht had even harder. The first gave way for a minute, and the second almost one and a half. In addition, Reztsova fell into an unpredictable situation at the bar. At the turn of the installation of the Belarusian began to shoot. As a result, Christina was forced to "work" on already closed targets.

“Someone started shooting at my setup. I fired three shots and noticed that the two targets were already closed. I just had to hit the closed targets. I know the rules, you can not leave cartridges in the cage. Therefore, there can be no sanctions against me, ”the Match TV athlete quotes.

Good start to the season and shocking lag in Ruhpolding

At the same time, the season began for the Russian women's team more than successfully. At the first stages of the World Cup, girls were pleased not only with good shooting, but also with a good move. It seemed that the days had finally passed away when they were inferior to leading rivals in speed for a minute or two. Svetlana Mironova was especially pleased in this regard, who looked very decent from a distance, and in addition worked on shooting.

The women's national team left Hochfilzen altogether with two awards. To begin with, Mironova won the bronze in the sprint, and then the relay four showed a second result, although she could win.

Further reasons for joy were less. In Annecy, the unsuccessful performance of the entire team was attributed to problems with skiing and the lack of a grinder. At the same time, Mironova stopped a step away from the medal all in the same sprint. And in Oberhof, the unsuccessful results were justified by problems with cartridges, especially since the Russians really missed a lot.

However, even then it was noticeable that Vitaly Noritsyn’s wards were physically challenging. For example, in a mass start Mironova skiing showed 26th result among 30 participants (+1: 43.9), and Larisa Kuklina - 29th (+2: 11.3).

Unfortunately, in Ruhpolding, where the weather was not so bad and the wind was not so strong, the situation only worsened. Already in the sprint, it became clear that the girls simply "did not run." Yurlova-Percht passed both firing lines to “zero”, but showed only the 37th result and lost to the winner Tiril Eckhoff for almost two minutes. In terms of sheer speed, she even took 67th place (+1: 46.7).

But if in the case of Catherine everything could be attributed to the disease, then the lag of the remaining domestic biathletes was already inexplicable. Kuklina also worked to zero, but won only two seconds against Yurlova-Perkht, and lost two minutes to the best Ekhoff in this component in terms of speed.

With the minus sign, even the usually fast Mironova was surprised, who showed only the 61st move (+1: 43.0) and did not get into a pass with three misses, and after the race she could not explain what had happened.

“I don’t know what this lag is connected with, it was just hard. The preparatory period went well - we did a fairly good job, but now something is going wrong. Difficulties arose already in the first round, ”Mironova quotes the“ Championship ”.

The best move from the Russians that evening was shown by Reztsova, who lost Eckhoff with her feet and a half minutes and finished in 42nd place. At the same time, Christina admitted that she was feeling well and did not expect such a lag.

Finally, the last of the Russians, Irina Starykh, showed the 57th move (+1: 36.3) and finished 60th. However, she did not look the best in Oberhof either. However, only an experienced biathlete after a day managed to not face the mud in the relay.

Trainers also found it difficult to explain the reasons for such a sharp decline. Noritsyn, in hot pursuit, complained about the poor work of the skis. But the vice president of the SBR Valery Polkhovsky gave a more detailed comment. According to him, the team did not acclimatize after returning from a small gathering in Austria.

“There is nothing to rejoice about, but you should not be sad. Nothing terrible happened. The main start, which assesses the work of the coaching staff, athletes and the federation, is the World Cup. Racing in Ruhpolding was not very successful. There is an explanation for this: the venue for the New Year's gathering was incorrectly chosen. Athletes were in Austria, trained at height. They did not go through full adaptation, went down from the mountains, moved. All this shaking led to the condition the girls were talking about. The coaches planned this. We hoped that everything would work out, ”the Match TV functionary quotes.

“One month before the World Cup it’s impossible to get girls in shape”

One way or another, the situation in the women's team less than a month before the start of the World Championships in Antholz remains intimidating. And most experts do not believe that it can be fixed. In particular, the two-time Olympic champion and mother Kristina Reztsova Anfisa directly stated that the team has serious problems with physical readiness, and urged not to write off the unsuccessful results for the lack of a grinding machine.

“This is an excuse. Is it possible to bring girls into shape a month before the World Cup? I guess this is impossible. Will the coaches of the Russian national team resign? Coaches may leave, but the girls will not show anything better. Return Wolfgang Pichler? What does Pichler have to do with it? I beg you, do not return it. We have good young specialists who are able to work, but, unfortunately, they are not invited to the Russian team. My suggestion: leave Noritsyna - Leonid Guryev should not be. I don’t know why he was returned, ”Reztsova quotes“ Sport day after day. ”

And the other two-time Olympic champion Dmitry Vasiliev completely agreed with Reztsova and gave advice to the coaching staff of the national team.

“Everything is very simple - this is the absolute unpreparedness of women. If at the beginning of the season they looked good, now there is no strength at all. Women lose a lot during the course, something needs to be done with this. The coaching staff will most likely communicate and think about what to do. I would have removed the leaders of the national team - Mironov and Yurlov-Perht from the next stage in Pokljuka and sent them to train and build up strength for the World Cup. In this state, you can’t go there, it’s terrible, ”said the expert.

In turn, the former national team coach Vladimir Alikin harshly criticized the current headquarters of the national team.

“We have done what training, and we are speaking. Talk about cartridges - excuses for the coaching staff. Not to honestly admit that in the summer they chose the wrong path of preparation. Everyone trains according to the methodology of Anatoly Khovantsev, and why is he not responsible for anything? It is necessary that the trainers admit their mistake, otherwise they blame it on the service providers. And there is no mobility either on the part of the president of the RRF or on the part of the coaches. Recruited people by ad. Who is this Artyom Istomin? The guys laughed, he himself went skiing, but no equipment. He didn’t do it, but the head coach read the resume and took him to the national team. Circus, this is a kid. I call him Gavrosh, can only bring cartridges. All people are laughing, I know. Some kind of mockery, ”RIA Novosti quoted Alikin as saying.