Squeezed the maximum: the Russians became the fourth in the relay, Latypov won 25 places in the pursuit at the KM biathlon stage

Latypov's breakthrough and Loginov's misses at every turn

Saturday's program of the World Cup stage in Kontiolahti was opened by the men's 12.5 km pursuit with four shooting ranges.

Russian biathletes had very low chances for medals.

Earlier, Matvey Eliseev, who started, had to play a minute and a half against Tarjei Bo, the positions of Alexander Loginov and Eduard Latypov were even worse.

But harsh weather conditions left room for heroism - there was a strong wind in the arena, and clean shooting could have lifted any athlete to the podium.

The vagaries of the weather showed up already at the first shooting.

Boe Sr. immediately made three mistakes and handed over the leadership to his brother Johannes, who led the overall standings of the World Cup.

German Arnd Peiffer with one penalty managed to rise to second place, Norwegian Erlend Bjontegard entered the intermediate three.

Loginov and Eliseev entered one penalty loop, and Latypov coped with the shooting.

Even before it, he played three positions with a move, and after that he became the 33rd, although he started 46th.

On the next lap, he continued to run just as well, ahead of even Johannes Boe.

Latypov was able to bypass his compatriots before the next firing line and break into the top thirty.

The second shooting was successful again for Latypov.

Having closed five targets, he rose to 18th place.

The lag behind the group of contenders for the bronze, which included Italian Lucas Hofer, Slovenian Jacob Fak and Swede Sebastian Samuelsson, was reduced to 45 seconds.

Beo Jr. was still in the lead, and his compatriot Johannes Dale came in second.

But Latypov did not cope with the first standing shooting.

Just like in the sprint, he made two mistakes.

He had to go down to Eliseev and Loginov, who all this time were "building a palisade" - this is how biathlon calls a situation when an athlete does not close one target at each line.

What would have happened if Latypov had remained accurate, Samuelsson demonstrated.

The Swede took advantage of Beo Jr.'s miss and cut the gap to eight seconds, although he had to start at number 18.

In the course of the race, the owner of the blue jersey of the best young biathlete even almost caught up with the Norwegian.

Together they arrived at the final firing line and began shooting with misses.

But Samuelsson pulled himself together and closed the remaining targets, and Boe earned a second penalty loop.

Latypov did not rush to the second stand and closed all the targets, moving up to 21st place.

In terms of the number of positions won back, he showed the second result, losing only to the unmistakable Austrian Simon Eder.

Loginov was never able to pass at least one line cleanly, but Eliseev did it.

All three of the Russians ended up in the top 30 in the pursuit, making little progress over the wholly unsuccessful sprint.

Meanwhile, Samuelsson was able to maintain the first line and won his first personal victory at the World Cup stage.

The second was unexpectedly the Frenchman Fabien Claude.

On the final lap, he had to fight for a medal with Beo Jr. and winner of the first race of the season, Sturla Legrade.

In the end, Boe did not find the strength to continue pursuing, and Legrade surrendered after a too early spurt at the finish line and lost bronze to the World Cup leader.

Interestingly, over the past 365 days, Johannes Boe has never dropped below fifth place in personal races, and this season he has always climbed the podium.

Mironova's two penalty loops and Kaisheva's accuracy

After the men's pursuit, the first women's relay of the season took place.

The Russian national team includes Evgenia Pavlova, Irina Kazakevich, Svetlana Mironova and Ulyana Kaisheva.

Tamara Voronina, who became the third among the Russians in the sprint, was not included in the composition.

Pavlova from the very beginning tried to stay among the leaders and came in fifth to the first shooting.

But as in the sprint, she did not have enough accuracy to hold her position.

Many girls coped with the wind and avoided additional rounds, and the Russian woman needed two of them at once, which is why she was 20 seconds behind the American team leading the race.

Interestingly, last season's undefeated Norwegian national team immediately suffered a disaster - Caroline Knotten, due to problems with a rifle, earned a huge gap of more than two minutes.

The stand for Pavlova also did not go well, but this time the competitors were wrong no less often than her.

Although the Russian woman made two more penalties, she lifted the team to eighth place, leaving Kazakevich 40 seconds behind the top three, which included Belarus, Sweden and Italy.

Before the first firing line, Kazakevich passed at her restrained pace, and this allowed her to get ready for shooting - the Russian woman closed all the targets and returned to the eighth line, lost in the distance.

She even managed to reduce the loss from the first place, but in many respects this was facilitated by the former Russian Irina Kruchinkina, who represented Belarus.

She was the only one who went to work out the penalty loops.

There was a gusty wind on the stand of the second stage, and none of Kazakevich's leaders could avoid mistakes.

But the Russian woman did not take advantage of this chance - she spent a lot of time to close the middle target.

As a result, due to even greater problems for the Czech woman Lucia Horvatova, she was in seventh place.

Kazakevich tried to improve and cut the gap from third place to 30 seconds with a move - for Mironova, who took over the baton, it was a hopeless loss.

On the next shooting, the wind calmed down, and each miss made the fight for medals much more difficult.

Mironova had to use one extra round to avoid the penalty loop.

In a dispute with the Austrian Katharin Innerhoffer, the Russian woman came out ahead to sixth place, but 34 seconds were already separating her from the top three.

The standing shooting took place in the same difficult conditions as in the previous stage.

The first five participants were mistaken and allowed the pursuers to approach them.

But Mironova did not close the gap, but only increased it.

She earned two penalties, and the Russian team dropped to eighth place.

It was already impossible to return to the fight for medals.

However, Ulyana Kaisheva, who was finishing the relay, did not quit fighting and showed herself brilliantly in shooting.

She didn't miss a beat, even when the wind raged on the shooting range.

The rivals literally made way for the Russian woman and let her go to fourth place.

On the last lap, Kaisheva kept him in a dispute with Ukrainian Elena Pidgrushna and Italian Federica Sanfilippo.

The victory was won by the powerful Swedish national team led by the Oberg sisters.

The French women lost less than ten seconds to them, the third were the girls from Germany.

Although the Russians lost two and a half minutes to the first place, they earned enough points to squeeze the Belarusians from the top five of the Nations Cup.