Continuation of the winning streak: Bolshunov and Nepryaeva won gold in the mass start at the Tour de Ski

Bolshunov's record and Chervotkin's bronze

The participants of the Tour de Ski moved to the Italian Val di Fiemme, where on January 10 the multi-day trip will end with a traditional ascent to the Alpe Cermis mountain.

But before that, they had to spend two more stages.

On Friday, races took place from the general start in the classical style, in which the victories were won by the Russian Alexander Bolshunov and Natalya Nepryaeva.

The first medals of the sixth stage of the Tour de Ski were played by men.

Already at the very beginning of the 15-kilometer race, Gleb Retivykh ran away from the main group - he hoped to earn sprint points, which were played after the first lap.

For a long time, the Russian skier managed to maintain a fairly significant lead, but the peloton still managed to catch up with him.

In the final spurt Zetivykh lost to the Frenchman Richard Jouve and the leader of the points classification Bolshunov, but he earned five points more than the Italian Federico Pellegrino and removed him from the second place in the ranking.

The main event of the second round was Evgeny Belov's attempt to escape and secure himself another medal after silver in the pursuit.

However, the track in Val di Fiemme, with its long slopes, did not allow keeping the lead from the peloton, and the 30-year-old skier was forced to return.

For the next four kilometers, none of the medal contenders tried to get ahead.

But at the 8.5 km mark, bonus seconds were played for the overall Tour de Ski, and thanks to this, the peloton revived.

They were especially needed by those who fought for the second and third lines of this rating, namely Artem Maltsev, Denis Spitsov, Ivan Yakimushkin and the Frenchman Maurice Monifik.

As a result, the main bonus went to Bolshunov, who did not need it at all, and after him Spitsov, Italian Francesco De Fabiani, Maltsev and Yakimushkin overcame the cutoff.

Monifa was at that time only the ninth.

However, the Frenchman ultimately emerged victorious from this battle.

He retained more strength for the last two laps, while Spitsov and Maltsev rolled back to the end of the peloton.

Only Yakimushkin remained to fight Monifika for the second place in the overall standings, but he still could not play a lot for the remaining 6.5 km, especially on such an unsuitable track.

Until the last kilometer the leaders of the race stayed in a large group, and De Fabiani was the first to dare to dash.

Bolshunov and Alexey Chervotkin sat on his tail in time.

The Italian overcame the climbs no worse than the leader of the Tour de Ski and at some point seemed a real contender for victory, but Bolshunov still did not allow him to run far and easily won back the gap on the last descent.

At the finish line, the Russian was already out of competition.

Bolshunov won the fifth race at the Tour de Ski in seven days and repeated the record of Sergei Ustyugov and Norwegian Bjorn Daly for the number of consecutive victories in the World Cup.

In addition, the Russian skier showed the best result in six distance races in a row - now this is a new absolute competition record.

The previous achievement belonged to another Norwegian Martin Jonsrud Sundby.

Chervotkin took third place in the mass start, followed by compatriots Ilya Semikov and Ivan Yakimushkin to the finish line.

Maurice Monifa closed the top ten and due to the fact that Denis Spitsov and Artyom Maltsev did not get into it, he rose to second place in the overall Tour de Ski standings.

However, the Frenchman did not manage to break away from the Russians - before the last two starts, he wins 10 seconds against Yakimushkin and 13 seconds against Spitsov.

The whole struggle to be considered the best skier after Bolshunov is still ahead of men.

Stage 6 of 8 - Boarding complete ☑️ # tourdeski2021 is keeping the cards ♦ ️ open for top spots! # Fiscrosscountry # tourdeski 📷NordicFocus pic.twitter.com/QmBGHLb2lN

- FIS Cross-Country (@FISCrossCountry) January 8, 2021

The second victory of the Russians in a row

The women's race was fraught with much more intrigue than the men's.

The previous stage in Toblach showed that Yulia Stupak can successfully fight American Jessica Diggins and Rosie Brennen when it is necessary to run in a classic move.

So the Russian woman had a chance to impose on them the struggle for leadership in the overall Tour de Ski standings, and the recent leader of the national team Natalia Nepryaeva - to please herself with medals of a separate stage.

The first half of the race confirmed Stupak's excellent prospects.

Brennen did not have a mass start right away, and by the middle of the distance she dropped to 26th place, while the Russian woman ran in the company of her compatriots at the beginning of the peloton.

At the 6 km mark, Stupak earned six bonus seconds, after which she could no longer doubt that after the finish she would become the second in the general classification.

Diggins resisted longer, but she gave up on the last loop.

One and a half kilometers before the finish line, a leadership group was formed from Stupak and Nepryaeva, with whom the Swede Ebba Andersson, the German Katarina Hennig, the Austrian Teresa Stadlober and the Finnish Johanna Matintalo ran.

The American ran ninth, behind another Finnish skier Krista Pärmyakoski and Russian Alisa Zhambalova.

Nepryaeva was the leader in the first six, and her pace was unbearable for the other skiers, and first of all for Stupak, who lagged behind before the final ascent.

In addition to her, only Andersson could fight Nepryaeva for victory in the race, but she spent too much energy on a senseless jerk on the third lap.

The vice-champion of the last two "Tour de Ski" confidently finished in first place and finally rose to the podium in the current stage race.

Nepryaeva's victory became somewhat historical.

The last time the Russians won two World Cup races in a row was four years ago, when Natalya Matveeva scored a double in the individual and team sprints with Stupak, who played under the name of Belorukov.

In distance races, Russian skiers have not won two golds one after the other for much longer - since March 2005, when Evgenia Medvedeva-Arbuzova and Yulia Chepalova rose to the highest step of the podium.

Following Nepryaeva in the mass start, Hennig and Andersson finished.

Stupak did not stay in the top six and dropped to eighth place behind Alisa Zhambalova, but won almost nine seconds against Diggins.

The Russian skier really rose to second place in the overall Tour de Ski standings, 55 seconds behind Diggins.

Nepryaeva, due to her victory, is located on the eighth line and can even swing to third - with such a form, which she demonstrated on the first day of the competition in Val di Fiemme, she will be able to play 37 seconds against the Swede Frida Karlsson during the sprint and ascent on the Alpe Cermiz.