Relax and not cheat yourself: what the defeat in the mixed relay at the World Cup should teach Russian biathletes

Two years ago, while whiling away time in the cafe of the press center before the mixed relay of the World Championships in Östersund, I invited my table neighbor, the outstanding French biathlete Rafael Poiret, to compose at his own discretion a kind of relay four of his dreams.

“Magdalena Forsberg, because she has always been amazingly stable in shooting, Liv-Grete Shelbraid, because she is the fastest feet, well, after all, we have three common children, and then - Ole Einar Bjoerndalen and Martin Fourcade”, - replied me an eight-time world champion.

Those words came to my mind not so long ago - in a conversation with the former coach of the Russian national team Leonid Guryev.

Talking about the first type of the World Championship program, the coach said: “First of all, good shooters should run the relay.

All the more so - a mixed relay.

At the World Championships, this is the first type of program, where all countries will try to win a medal.

The medal was hooked - and we went further throughout the championship with our heads held high ... "

The Russian athletes did not manage to leave with their heads held high on the first day of the World Championship.

To begin with, the Russian coaches did not guess much with the formation.

In biathlon, this can happen to anyone, but, frankly, it was a shame to see how the world champion Alexander Loginov, who was running at the first stage, did not close two targets.

As a result, the athlete lost too much time, aiming each of the additional shots, and it was possible to ascertain, even without waiting for Loginov's second visit to the line, that the Russian bet did not play.

Does it sound too categorical?

I think no.

The gold won in the mixed relay at the beginning of January at the first of the two Cup stages of Oberhof greatly fueled the illusion that at the world championship Russia is able to fight in this form for the podium, or even for victory.

But only if everything really works out: the weather, the well-being of each of the four athletes, ski preparation, shooting, courage.

Take away at least one component, the pyramid will collapse - everyone understood that.

But, forgive me, what kind of courage can we talk about if the strongest, most experienced and titled fighter of the team has not managed to return his own shooting during the season to the proper state?

Loginov's miss with the final shot at the second turn - from the same series.

Yes, at his stage Sasha ended up in the top five in speed, but the stake was not made on this at all, but on passing the baton to Eduard Latypov at least with a small margin.

But - alas ...

One of the former coaches of the national team, four-time world champion and gold medalist of the 1988 Games in the relay Valery Medvedtsev told me a few days before the start of the World Championship that Alexander Loginov would probably try to get in maximum shape for the main start, but even in comparison with last year he was not that good. 

“It is impossible to work alone in biathlon - you constantly need an outside perspective.

And at the turn, and technically on the track while running.

You need to see how an athlete goes uphill, how he works out certain sections, how he acts at the turn, what mistakes he makes.

Any mistake can be learned very quickly if you don't correct it right away, ”he added.

Perhaps Loginov was really knocked down by the absence of a personal trainer nearby.

Or maybe the homework was somewhat unbalanced by the changed marital status.

There is nothing derogatory here: on the eve of the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, even the great of the greatest, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, was in a similar position, when they had a daughter with Daria Domracheva and the Norwegian had to greatly adjust both training and rest.

And if you start remembering the reasons that prevented the eight-time Olympic champion from getting into the Olympic team, I would mention that too.

The senior coach of the Russian men's national team, Yuri Kaminsky, noted on the eve of the first start that the team had completed the entire planned program, all the athletes had improved their performance, and that everything that had been planned had also been done in the shooting unit.

“But the rivals were not lying on the couch,” added the specialist.

In the mixed relay, the rivals had nothing to do with it - they were solving their own problems.

Norway is victorious, after all, the status of a multiple world champion in this discipline obliges to something.

Even if Marthe Olsbu-Roiseland made her fans nervous in the final shooting, almost getting a penalty loop, Norway, as you know, can afford not that.

The second place of the Austrian Lisa Teresa Hauser, who barely reached the finish line, ahead of Olympic champions Hanna Oeberg and Elena Pidgrushnaya, became a sensation, but an annoying sensation.

From the category when the phrase “we could have been in this place” itself comes to the tongue.

But, in all honesty, could they?

Each of the Russians was in this race too unequal struggle with external circumstances.

Eduard Latypov desperately caught up with the leaders and fizzled out long before the finish line.

Svetlana Mironova, who perfectly, without a single miss, passed her stage in the golden Oberhof relay, grabbed two penalties.

And it no longer mattered how Ulyana Kaisheva would pass her stage.

After the finish, Mironova admitted that she was simply "covered".  

“We ran the test here and everything was fine.

But the control pace was lower than today, so it turned out like this.

For four days, I experienced a lot of tension, which I could not get rid of.

I think now the tension will go away, ”Mironova said on the air of Match TV.

And she added: "It's a tough track - I think it covers everyone."

Coaches from a variety of sports, wise with their own great experience, like to notice that during the main start it is already impossible to change something globally.

The same Guriev, who prepared four Olympic champions during his career, said: “The most important thing at the World Championships or the Olympic Games is to get enough sleep.

And everything will be fine.

But if he has already begun to wind himself up, he launched cockroaches in his head, as if to shoot a zero, as if to get into the prize-winners ... That's it, you will burn out completely ... "

Somehow the great Tamara Moskvina, the author of four gold and four silver Olympic medals in pair skating, expressed about the same idea:

“At competitions, the coach's place is in the buffet.

Learning the elements at this stage is pointless.

It remains to create a positive attitude to the athlete.

Praise, calm down, see if the stress level rises to unacceptable, bring water and napkins on time, watch so that accreditation is not lost, so as not to be late for a warm-up - that is, try to remove all problems from a person, except for their own performance.

Is what has been said up to date in biathlon?

More than.

It's just that the athletes need to understand that they go to the start, not the coaches.

Yes, everything happens in biathlon.

Here, in Pokljuka, at one of the World Cup stages, four-time Olympic champion Daria Domracheva once fell terribly.

She fell not on one of those terrible slopes for which the local track is famous, but right at the stadium, at the exit from the penalty loop, tripping over the skis of her rival.

She hurt her arm, lost clips, broke a rifle, was forced to withdraw from the race, and therefore experienced not the most pleasant moments of her career.

But it was Dasha who once said: “An athlete must do something on his own to relieve himself of the psychological burden.

Don't let him crush you.

I remember that at the Games in Sochi I tried by all available means to extract positive emotions from absolutely everything that was happening around.

In order to thus turn the Games from war into a holiday.

Accumulate emotional energy and keep it inside yourself until the start. "

The World Championship is not the Olympics, and certainly not a war.

Yes, Russia lost the first battle, and it's a shame: there were too many hopes associated with the first type of program, and therefore the frustration turned out to be strong.

But the first race is just one race.

And it's high time to quote Poiret again: “In biathlon you need to play, not work.

Play with your rivals and never cheat yourself. "