Russian skier Alexander Bolshunov has started to defend the Tour de Ski champion title.

On the first day of 2021, he became the silver medalist of the freestyle sprint competition, which took place in Val Musteire, Switzerland.

In addition to the World Cup leader, Artyom Maltsev and Gleb Retivykh also rose to the top five in the overall standings of the multi-day race.

Compared to the December starts, the composition of the Tour de Ski should have increased.

The national teams of Sweden and Finland resumed their participation in the competition, so only the national team of Norway will miss the main starts of the season.

However, the return of the two Scandinavian teams did not greatly affect the competition in the men's races.

Only three Swedes and one Finn passed the sprint qualification.

In the Russian national team, four men at once were in the first eight qualifications.

Bolshunov showed the second time on an unusual track, on which the organizers made two steep ascents and hillocks typical for ski cross.

He lost only to the recognized favorite of the skating sprint Federico Pellegrino, who had already won this discipline twice during the season.

Maltsev took the third place, Andrey Melnichenko took the sixth place, Alexander Terentyev, the best young skier of the season, climbed to the eighth place.

In addition to them, Evgeny Belov, Gleb Retivykh and Ivan Yakimushkin entered the playoffs.

Bolshunov did not avoid Pellegrino and chose him as a rival in the quarterfinals.

Together they held the fastest race of the first round, and the Russian skier won it.

Retivykh and Melnichenko automatically advanced from the second race to the semifinals, not letting Belov go further.

Terentyev and Maltsev also continued the struggle, and Yakimushkin was forced to lose a lot of time due to the fall of the Finn Verneri Sukhonen.

In the semifinals, Bolshunov again met with Pellegrino, only now he was accompanied by Retivykh and Melnichenko.

The World Cup leader did not agree on any team tactics and immediately took the lead in the race, but before the finish line he still missed both Italian and Frenchman Richard Juve.

Only thanks to the good timing of the race, Bolshunov made it to the final along with the Zealous.

In another race, luck accompanied Maltsev, who, in a fight with other French skiers, won the third ticket for the Russians to the final.

The medal race followed a very unexpected scenario.

Pellegrino decided not to sit behind the backs of rivals, as he usually does, but to immediately lead the race, without waiting for the final showdown.

All skiers had to lag behind one by one, but Bolshunov continued to fight to the last.

He even retained his strength for the last spurt, only the distance was not enough to keep up with the best sprinter of the season.

However, the second place for the Russian skier is an undoubted success, since Pellegrino will not be a rival in the fight for the overall score of the Tour de Ski.

At the end of the first day, Bolshunov loses eight seconds to the Italian, but in any distance race he easily eliminates this gap.

It should have been a shame for the Zealous sprinter, since he could not climb the podium and finished fourth.

To win a medal at a separate stage of the Tour de Ski, he will have to wait until January 9, when the same competition will take place in a classic move.

Maltsev took fifth place, and in the overall standings, thanks to successful qualifications, he became fourth.

It should not be difficult for him to rise to second place in the coming days and be behind Bolshunov.

Grande Federico Pellegrino 👉from fastest quali time to the top of the podium 🔝Alexander Bolshunov and Richard Jouve both chased the italian 🚀 well throughout the course and are rewarded with rank 2 and 3 💪 # fiscrosscountry 📷NordicFocus pic.twitter.com/kbM9YptlaX

- FIS Cross-Country (@FISCrossCountry) January 1, 2021

Unlike the men, the Swedish girls were able to immediately join the fight in the women's competition.

Suffice it to say that three Swedes were in the top four in qualifying at once, and they all bypassed the World Cup leader Rosie Brennen from the USA.

The Russians were not so noticeable in the prologue - the best of them, Tatiana Sorina, showed the seventh time, Yulia Stupak closed the top ten, and Khristina Matsokina became the 23rd.

With difficulty, Natalya Nepryaeva made her way to the next round, who, in the absence of the Norwegians, could well have swung at the title.

In the quarterfinals, Nepryaeva tried to dispel doubts about her form and, thanks to the finishing spurt, was able to directly break into the next round, although she had to compete with three skiers from the first five qualifications at once.

Stupak did not manage to perform so well - she got into a strong race with two natural-born sprinters Nadine Fendrich from Switzerland and Anamaria Lampic from Slovenia, who were too difficult to cope with.

Matsokina was left without a semi-final, but Sorina was able to go further, very easily conducting her race.

True, in the semifinals, both Russian women still had to end the fight.

Nepryaeva learned from her own experience how difficult it is to compete with Fendrich and Lampich, who left without medals even the winner of the qualification Maya Dalkvist from Sweden.

Sorina, on the other hand, began to make a lot of mistakes on the descents and lose precious seconds on this, because of which she had to finish fifth.

Left without a final, the Russians did not earn the good bonus seconds required for the overall Tour de Ski standings.

As a result, Sorina took the eighth place before the Saturday mass start 10 km, and Nepryaeva - only 11th.

They can be comforted by the fact that in the overall World Cup standings they are both now in the top three, behind only Brennen.

The victory at the first stage of the Women's Tour de Ski was won by Lynn Swann of Sweden.

The last year's sprint World Cup winner easily left her rivals behind.

She was especially helped by the collision of Fendrich and Lampic, because of which the Swiss was in the snow, and the Slovenian was disqualified after the race.

The American Jessica Diggins and another Swedish skier Frida Karlsson, who leads the World Cup youth standings, also climbed the podium.

💥Epic start into the new year with eventful Sprint competitions to open the # tourdeski2021!

Linn Svahn puts the 🔨 down and starts into her first Tour de Ski on top of the podium 🎉 # fiscrosscountry 📷NordicFocus pic.twitter.com/6cgUW2sZjg

- FIS Cross-Country (@FISCrossCountry) January 1, 2021