The season in speed skating started with the European Championship in Heerenveen, and this tournament brought the Russian team the first medal.
Angelina Golikova became the silver medalist in the sprint all-around.
Until recently, she remained a contender for gold, but still, in terms of points, she lost to the host of the competition, Jutta Lerdam.
Golikova retained the leadership won at the end of the first day after the 500 meters race.
However, she ran 0.15 seconds slower than the day before, while Lerdam and her compatriot Femke Kok improved their performance.
The other Russians - Daria Kachanova and Olga Fatkulina - did not manage to rejoin the fight for medals, so Golikova had to face the Dutch women alone in the final 1000m race.
Angelina Golikova 🇷🇺 speeds into 37.42 in the 500m and maintains her lead in the Ladies Sprint competition, ahead of Femke Kok and Jutta Leerdam 🇳🇱
Results: https://t.co/uzd30sJKps#SpeedSkatingpic.twitter.com/09AFJmV6UY
- ISU Speed Skating (@ISU_Speed) January 17, 2021
This distance is the most problematic for the Russian woman, while Lerdam won the world champion title on it in 2020.
The advantage of Golikova over the final race, in which the rivals played in the last pair, was 0.57 seconds.
Golikova was unable to keep it, losing 0.99 seconds to herself, while the Dutch woman showed the best result in the “thousand” in two days.
Fortunately, Kok also ran below her capabilities before this, and Golikova remained in second place.
In the men's sprint all-around, the Russian team was disappointed.
In the absence of Pavel Kulizhnikov and Ruslan Murashov, Viktor Mushtakov had little chances for a medal.
He was fourth at the end of Saturday and remained in his place after the 500 meters.
But the attempt to climb higher failed - at a distance twice as long, the Russian fell on the third step and flew into the side.
He was left without points in one of the disciplines and finished the championship in 13th place, between teammates Viktor Lobas and Artyom Arefiev.
Dutchmen Thomas Krol and Hein Ottesper took the first two places, German Joel Dufter moved up to third.
In the women's classic all-around, the denouement also turned out not to be what the Russian team had hoped for.
At a distance of 1500 meters, there was a reason to rejoice in the second place to Evgenia Lalenkova, but this success had no global significance.
She did not fight for medals in the overall standings and only qualified for the 5000 meters race.
The same could be said about Elizaveta Golubeva - although after three types of the program she had the third total of points, still at the longest distance she could not compete with the main stayers.
A good result in the "lorry" was required first of all by Natalia Voronina.
It depended on him whether she would become the first Russian woman in 23 years to climb the podium at the European Championship.
Voronina showed quite worthy for herself 1: 58.66, but this was not enough.
Ten girls ran faster than her, and among them was the Czech Martina Sablikova, who took fourth place.
In the final form of the program, Voronina had to bypass it by almost two and a half seconds in order not to be allowed to take third place.
The draw brought two rivals together in one race.
For the first half of the distance, Voronina tried to hold on to Sablikova, but then she began to slow down with each lap.
As a result, the Russian skater did not run out of seven minutes, and the Czech woman stopped the stopwatch at around 6: 53.22.
In the last pair, the all-around leaders from Holland Antoinette de Jong and Irene Schouten took part, it was enough for them to run in their strength to compete for gold and silver.
Voronina became the fourth in the overall standings, Golubeva and Lalenkova rounded out the eight.
Martina Sablikova 🇨🇿 wins the final 5000m, with Irene Schouten and Antoinette de Jong 🇳🇱 finishing second and third
De Jong successfully defends her European Allround title 🥇
Schouten 🇳🇱 and Sablikova 🇨🇿 take silver and bronze 🥈🥉 # SpeedSkatingpic.twitter.com / XQzmayXmU2
- ISU Speed Skating (@ISU_Speed) January 17, 2021
In the men's all-around event without Danila Semerikov and Alexander Rumyantsev, the Russians had almost zero chances for a medal from the very beginning.
Success can be considered the hit of Sergei Trofimov in the top eight and participation in the 10,000 meter race, where he even overtook the future bronze medalist of the Norwegian Sverre Lunde Pedersen.
Behind him, in ninth place, is a young skater Daniil Aldoshkin, for whom participation in such a tournament will provide valuable experience for the future.
In this form, the Dutch, represented by Patrick Rust and Marcel Bosker, also took the first two lines at the end of two days, so Golikova's silver even provided Russian skaters with the second place in the medal standings of the European Championship - no other country except the hosts of the competition achieved even that.