Kazakevich and Loginov's nightmarish racks

The World Cup stage in Nove Mesto ended with a day of mixed relay races.

The biathletes first competed for medals in its classic version with teams of four, and then in a single mixed.

For the Russian national team, these two starts were especially important.

After Alexander Loginov became the third in the standings of individual races, the Russians in no other discipline managed to take a prize-winning place at the end of the season.

And only in the mixed standings there was such a chance.

The gap from the top three, which was closed by Sweden, was 24 points, which were fully recouped in one day.

By the way, the Scandinavians faced serious problems before the Sunday races - their entire coaching staff was forced to quarantine.

The leader of the team, Hannah Oeberg, had to take responsibility for training partners and carry out a zeroing for them.

Other athletes who did not go to the start went to watch on the track.

When the mixed relay started, failures continued to haunt other competitors of the Russian national team.

Almost immediately, Frenchwoman Anais Chevalier fell and broke a stick.

Before the first shooting, the Belarusian Irina Krivko also took off from the track.

Both of their teams immediately found themselves outside the top ten, and Ulyana Kaisheva, who represented Russia at the first stage, confidently walked in the general group.

In the last two personal races, Kaisheva made eight mistakes, but in team starts she almost never allows herself such mistakes.

The mixed relay was no exception.

The Russian woman closed all five targets on the prone and returned to the track along with all the leaders, only letting the Norwegian Tiril Eckhoff, invincible in Nove Mesto, go ahead for six seconds.

And the national teams of Sweden and Germany, which Russia lost in the mixed standings, immediately ran out of additional cartridges.

Elvira Eberg and Vanessa Hints were almost half a minute behind Kaisheva.

On the second lap, Eckhoff continued to break away from her rivals, with Kaisheva leading the small peloton.

This did not stop her from working out just as well on the counter.

Thanks to her accuracy, the Russian national team is firmly in second place with a small margin from the Austrian team, with which it also argued for getting into the top 3 total.

True, Eckhoff also did not allow herself to miss and remained the leader with a 14-second margin.

The last third of the stage was given to Kaisheva worse, and the gap increased to 27 seconds, but she passed the baton to Irina Kazakevich to the second.

The 23-year-old Russian woman was quickly bypassed by the Frenchwoman Justine Breza and the Italian Dorothea Wierer.

But after lying down, where Kazakevich had only one mistake, she was left to run right behind two more experienced athletes.

Lagging behind the Norwegian Martha Olsby-Royseland was all the same half a minute.

Especially important for Kazakevich was standing shooting, which in the last races completely ceased to be given to her.

She had four penalties in Friday's sprint, as well as the previous week in the pursuit.

This unpleasant tendency continued in the mixed relay - Kazakevich again missed four times and earned a penalty loop.

The Russian national team had to drop to seventh place.

Alexander Loginov had to correct the mistakes of his compatriot.

Although he also did not shine in personal races, he performed brilliantly while prone, without spending a single extra round.

He reduced the minute gap from the top three to only 26 seconds.

In part, he was helped by the unsuccessful shooting of Simon Detjeu - the Frenchman earned a penalty loop and returned to the track right in front of the Russian.

And the stand turned out to be an even more difficult test for Loginov than for Kazakevich.

While the opponents closed one target after another in the complete absence of wind, the Russian athlete earned two whole penalty circles.

The national team has not had such bad shooting in the mixed relay since November 2013, when Olga Zaitseva and Anton Shipulin also got an extra 450 meters in total.

Then the team finished sixth, and Eduard Latypov took the baton from Loginov ninth.

At the last stage, Latypov did an excellent job on the bench, but did not avoid two misses when shooting while standing.

He played two positions and, most importantly, finished in front of the national teams of Austria and Germany.

In the mixed relay standings, the Russians climbed to fifth place before the single mixed.

True, the gap from Sweden has increased to 38 points.

The Scandinavians, left without coaches, were able to finish third behind the teams of Norway and Italy.

Masterful victory for Norway in the Mixed Relay in Nove Mesto Na Morave



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- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) March 14, 2021

Perfect lying of the Russians and the victory of the Swedes

Choosing the line-up for Sunday's races, the coaching staff of the Russian national team clearly gave priority to the shortened version of the mixed relay.

For her, a new duet was formed from Matvey Eliseev and Larisa Kuklina, who were the best in their team in Saturday's pursuit races.

The bet on Kuklina's accuracy almost played out.

If she had no problems with the first shooting, then she still needed two additional cartridges on the rack.

The Russian woman passed her stage to Eliseev, losing 18 seconds to the French.

For the hosts of the competition, the second shooting was fatal - Lucija Harvatova in the last race of Ondřej Moravec incomprehensibly made eight mistakes.

Eliseev, like Kuklina, did not run too fast, but tried to compensate for everything with excellent shooting.

At the first stage, he succeeded, and at the second, he immediately began work with two misfires.

From fifth position he had to retreat to eighth, losing 36 seconds to the leading Norwegian team and 20 seconds to the top three.

Kuklina did not forget about her accurate prone shooting and repeated it when she again entered the fight.

At that time, the Russian national team was the third in accuracy, yielding one additional cartridge to Belgium and Japan.

Taking into account the ski run, Kuklina closed the top five, still noticeably lagging behind the teams fighting for medals.

At best, she could only keep the won positions, but a miss with the last shot on the stand again lowered the Russians to eighth place.

At the last stage, Eliseev repeated everything he had done before.

A clean lie returned him to the fifth position, while the closest pursuers of the Russians were then Belarus and France, which had penalty loops in their liabilities.

On the stand, Eliseev predictably missed twice, but now he didn't have to go below fifth place - the rivals still retreated by the end of the race.

The Russian national team finished fifth, while the teams of Sweden and the United States, who also made seven penalties, won gold and bronze.

Between them was the Norwegian team, which needed one more round less.

An attempt to rise in the mixed relay standings was never crowned with success - the Austrians who finished fourth left the Russians in fifth place.

Fantastic victory for Sweden in the Single Mixed Relay in Nove Mesto!

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- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) March 14, 2021