Silver finish: skier Retivykh took second place in the sprint at the KM stage in Sweden

The World Cup stage in Ulricehamn, Sweden, was originally supposed to take place immediately after the Tour de Ski.

Because of this, only personal and team sprints were included in his program - these types of distancers, exhausted on a multi-day race, would still be of little interest.

But the competition had to be postponed so that skiers avoid unnecessary crossings, which are highly undesirable during the coronavirus pandemic.

All this greatly influenced the composition of the competition participants.

The Norwegian national team sent a second squad for both men and women.

Of the Russian athletes, only two were in the application at all - pure sprinter Gleb Retivykh and Sergei Ustyugov, who will only benefit from any starts before the World Cup.

No one showed up from the women's team.

It was considered irrational to send a reserve or youth to the Russian Cross-Country Skiing Federation - some skiers would have to do expensive tests for COVID-19, while others will soon have the youth and junior championship of the planet in Finland.

At the same time, before the start of the competition in Ulrisehamn, it became known that the next stage in Nove Mesto would be missed by the vice-leader of the World Cup Ivan Yakimushkin.

This meant that Alexander Bolshunov would no longer have any competitors in the fight for the Big Crystal Globe.

Officially, he will win the trophy when the name of Yakimushkin is not in the starting protocols of the next competition, but now the Russian team has a reason to rejoice at this success.

Bolshunov will be the tenth skier to win the World Cup twice overall.

The stage in Ulrisehamn opened with the drawing of medals in a personal sprint with a skating course.

For Russian skiers, the qualification was quite calm.

Ustyugov showed the fourth time, losing only to the Finn Yoni Mäki, who became famous two weeks ago, the Norwegian Thomas Larsen and the Frenchman Luke Shanava.

He did not show zealous fast seconds, but passed the selection, taking 26th place.

It was also worth paying attention to the 12th position of the leader of the sprint standings of the World Cup Federico Pellegrino - under certain conditions, Zealous could move him from the first line of the rating.

Ustyugov got into the first quarterfinal race with Shanava and the rather dangerous Swede Oskar Svensson.

The Russian skier was the first to get to the finish line, but the rivals were able to overtake him.

Ustyugov had to sit in a deep split to defend the first place.

The Zealous playoffs began more alarmingly - he was behind the backs of his rivals for a long time and risked staying there.

But right before the finish line, he nevertheless found a corridor for himself, along which he slipped ahead, and went to the semifinals.

Pellegrino also followed him in the next race, and the winner of the qualification Mäki finished the fight.

Then two Russians got into one race and had to compete with each other.

Out of habit, Ustyugov immediately seized the leadership and led Shanav and his compatriot Richard Juve.

Zealous for a long time unsuccessfully tried to rise from the last place.

He was saved by the collision of the Swede Markus Grate and the Czech Michal Novak, thanks to which he was able to re-engage in the struggle at the finish line.

As a result, Ustyugov did not endure a little and became the second, losing only to Zhuv, and Retivykh took third place.

The first semi-final turned out to be much faster than the second, where Pellegrino won, so that the Russians in full force made their way to the main race of the day.

The host of the competition Svensson was added to the six finalists.

In the final, Ustyugov did not change his tactics and immediately set a crazy pace, which only Pellegrino could maintain.

At some point, it seemed that Retivykh and Svensson were already hopelessly behind, but on the descent, the skiers again united into a group.

This time Ustyugov failed to maintain the lead until the final showdown.

At the turn, Shanava cleverly bypassed him, after which the Russian began to rapidly lose ground.

But on the other hand, Retivykh rebuilt in time and joined the fight for medals.

Before the final straight, he already had a better position for attack, but he was unexpectedly bypassed by Svensson.

The Russian finished second and won his third personal award this season.

The third was Pellegrino, for whom this medal was 33rd in his career in the personal sprint - he broke the men's podium record in this discipline at the World Cup.

The Italian remained the leader of the sprint standings this season, but Zetivykh reduced the gap a little.

Ustyugov finished sixth, failing to keep his strength for the last part of the distance in the fourth race.

In women, the victory was also celebrated by the hostesses of the competition, only in their case it was completely predictable.

Even after falling in the quarterfinals of Lynn Swann, who won four sprints this season, four Swedes made it to the final.

Maya Dalkvist became the best among them, and Johanna Hagström took second place.

Women's World Cup leader Jessica Diggins of the USA finished third and extended her lead over Julia Stupak.