Disastrous performance of men and tenth place of Mironova: Russian biathletes extended a mediocre streak in the World Cup

Eliseev and Loginov - outside the thirty

The second stage of the Biathlon World Cup started against the background of news that in a related sport - skiing - entire teams refuse to participate in the next competitions for fear of contracting the coronavirus.

Skiers from Norway, Sweden and Finland will skip the pre-New Year stages of their World Cup.

Fortunately, the biathletes' competitions are organized differently, and there were no massive refusals in Kontiolahti.

The Norwegian national biathlon team even denied the intention to act and assured that they felt safe in their competitions.

“The situation is different in cross-country skiing.

First, they need to move a lot from place to place.

We have two weeks in biathlon in Kontiolahti and two weeks in Hochfilzen.

Secondly, we have a clearer protocol.

It is much better than the protocol of the International Ski Federation.

I know that Johannes Boe said in an interview with NRK that he respects the position of the Norwegian Ski Federation not to participate in the World Cup, but I asked that others respect his choice to compete in the Biathlon World Cup, "Norwegian national team coach Siegfried Maze told Match TV.

In such a difficult situation, biathletes even manage not only to create competition with each other, but also to strengthen it.

So, Anton Babikov returned to service after quarantine, and the sprint race on Thursday was supposed to be his first official start of the season.

But due to missing the first stage, he received a later start number, in contrast to the main group of contenders for medals.

But other Russians entered it.

Matvey Eliseev was the first to start.

Against the background of other biathletes who opened the race, he ran very well and, thanks to clean shooting, naturally led the overall standings after the first first firing line.

Soon Alexander Loginov joined him - two Russians briefly seized the lead, just as it happened during the sprint at the first stage in Kontiolahti.

This idyll lasted longer than last week.

World Cup leader Johannes Boe made one mistake while lying down and lost almost ten seconds to Eliseev.

A little later, the Russians were nevertheless pushed by the Swede Jesper Nelin, the Norwegian Tarjei Boe and the German Arnd Peiffer, but the lag was very tiny and made it possible to count on prizes.

Eliseev also cleanly passed the second shooting and further strengthened his leadership.

But soon all hopes for medals for the Russians literally collapsed.

At first, Eduard Latypov made two misses on the bench, who was clearly one of the best in speed that day.

Simultaneously with him, Loginov conducted the second shooting, and his accuracy was even worse - the world champion in the sprint earned three penalties.

Their misses coincided with the beginning of the snowfall, but the opponents did not have such problems with closing targets.

And then the chances for a prize-winning place for Eliseev melted away.

The Russian gave up abruptly on the last loop and with great difficulty reached the finish line.

If after the stand his gap from Johannes Boe was only four seconds, then for the remaining distance it increased to one minute.

At the same time, the Norwegian biathlete was not the best that day - he was displaced from the first place at the finish line by his older brother Tarja.

The 2011 World Cup winner surpassed the current competition winner by 30 seconds.

Eliseev and Loginov, who ran with three misses almost at the same time, lost a minute and a half to the leader.

On this day, the final backlog was of particular importance, since on Saturday the men will have a pursuit race.

The Russians will have to start very late in it.

As a result, Eliseev and Loginov did not gain a foothold even in the third ten and took 33rd and 34th places.

For the first time in history, not a single Russian biathlete was in the top thirty of the sprint race.

Compatriots were even worse off.

Latypov made two more mistakes and lost almost two minutes to the elder Be.

Although Babikov returned to the track, he was not at all ready for the competition and immediately began to lose in speed to almost everyone who started before him.

Two misfires only worsened his position, and in the end he finished in 55th place, barely getting on the list of participants in the pursuit.

Pyotr Pashchenko and Semyon Suchilov did not cope with this task at all, making six mistakes for two.

And the leadership of the two Norwegian brothers was eventually broken by the German Arnd Peiffer.

With clean shooting, he lost almost 14 seconds to Beo the elder, and his speed was enough to leave the World Cup leader with the bronze.

The Norwegians, on the other hand, took the lead in the overall standings of the competition after the sprint.

Mironova and Kazakevich are in the top 13

The women's race started an hour and a half after the men's.

By that time, the weather conditions had worsened, and the first numbers of the start protocol had to run and shoot in the falling snow.

The World Cup leaders reacted to this in different ways - the Italian Dorothea Wierer immediately made two penalties and rolled away from the leading positions, and the Swede Johanna Scotheim took the lead, having run the first third of the distance at the same time as the Frenchwoman Anais Chevalier-Boucher.

The first Russian girls, following Wierer, began to work out the penalty loops.

Ulyana Kaisheva made one misfire, Evgenia Pavlova - two.

After the second shooting, both brought the total number of their misses to three.

Instead, Irina Kazakevich made an attempt to surpass the results of men.

The vice-champion of the Universiade had a good start and, thanks to clean shooting, ended up in the top twenty after the first firing line, but she still did not close one target on the stand.

Nevertheless, during the race Kazakevich managed to run faster and faster and eventually climb to 13th place.

Svetlana Mironova's performance turned out to be a real application for a medal.

After lying down, she was in the top ten, just 12.4 seconds behind the World Cup leader Hannah Oeberg from Sweden, and even less than her sister Elvira and Norwegian Ingrid Tandrevold.

The Russian woman approached the second shooting line with the third result, but a miss with the last shot threw Mironova to the eighth line.

The athlete from the Tomsk region could not get ready for the last loop and somehow win back the loss and eventually took tenth place.

This result was the best for Russian biathletes of the day.

Mironova was 63 seconds behind the eldest of the Eberg sisters and 36 seconds behind the youngest, who became the bronze medalist after Chevalier-Boucher.

Under certain hands, in the Sunday pursuit race, the Russian woman will claim a prize.

Tatyana Voronina became the only Russian woman to hit all ten targets.

But, like Eliseev, she did not have enough speed at a distance.

Opponents pushed her to 27th place.

The race was completely disastrous for Anastasia Goreeva.

Having made only half of the accurate shots, the 21-year-old athlete finished 81st.

Evgenia Pavlova and Ulyana Kaisheva failed to score points in the World Cup, but they will at least compete in the pursuit.