Another Ushkina medal and a scandal due to the "Norwegian" form: how the Czech Republic ended in biathlon and cross-country skiing

Semikov's victory in the marathon and performance in the "Norwegian" form

The Russian cross-country skiing championship ended with marathon races in the classic style, 50 km for men and 30 km for women.

Many elite athletes did not manage to endure until the end of the national championship - the last starts were missed by Alexander Bolshunov, Alexey Chervotkin, Evgeny Belov, Artyom Maltsev, Natalya Nepryaeva, Tatyana Sorina, Yulia Stupak and Yana Kirpichenko.

In the absence of these skiers, the main favorites of the men's marathon were Ilya Semikov, who specializes in this particular discipline, and Alexei Shemyakin, who played in the Ski Classics marathon series this season.

It was they who fled from the peloton after the 35th kilometer and created a serious lead.

For a long time they continued to walk together, until Semikov took another leap, which brought him victory.

After the race, he admitted that he still wanted to compete with Bolshunov and test himself in a head-to-head fight with the winner of four races in Tyumen.

“I would like to compare myself against the background of leaders, against the background of Alexander.

With the rest of the guys, we competed for the season plus or minus - with Lesha Chervotkin and Zhenya Belov.

I don’t know if it would have been possible to hold on to Alexander, if he had been there today, we have to watch it from a distance, ”Semikov said on the air of Telesport.

Third place was taken by Andrey Sobakarev, who won bronze in a dispute with Ilya Sannikov.

He admitted that he will no longer be able to train in the same group with Bolshunov and intends to change the training system before next season.

“I will try to reconsider something in summer training, but, apparently, not with Yuriy Borodavko.

I had a difficult season, I was ill with covid, it was difficult to catch endurance even in sprint races.

There are also problems with skiing.

I counted on more.

They take me out of the group.

I will think about what to do in the offseason.

It is not always good to have a strong athlete to follow.

Fast preparation is not suitable for everyone.

I can't say that much attention is paid to Bolshunov, he is just a strong athlete, he trains a lot.

There is no particular attention to it.

It's just that the schedule is heavy, and he does one and a half to two times more, "- quotes Sobakarev" Sport-Express ".

In the women's marathon, the absence of Sorina, who won four gold medals and one silver in Tyumen, was not originally planned.

She starred just before the start, feeling unwell.

Without her, no one could impose a fight on Maria Istomina - the 24-year-old athlete immediately ran into the lead and won with an advantage of 40 seconds over Anastasia Rygalina.

Ekaterina Smirnova finished third.

During the race, skier Aleksandra Shimolina drew unexpectedly a lot of attention.

Elena Vyalbe, President of the Russian Cross-Country Skiing Federation, who commented on the marathon, said that the 21-year-old athlete could not be allowed to start, since she ran in the overalls of the Norwegian national team, and it is prohibited by the rules to compete in the national uniform of other countries.

After the race in which Shimolina finished 29th, she stated that there were no violations on her part.

Although her jumpsuit did indeed have the colors traditional for the Norwegian national team, there was no official symbols of another state on it.

“There are no inscriptions or symbols here.

The colors just match.

I performed in this uniform all season, it costs 10 thousand rubles.

It is sewn by Bjørn Daehlie.

Yes, she does it for the Norwegians too, but this is a mass market, and before that there were no problems with her.

Now I’ll think about what can be done with her so that there are no more such incidents, ”said Shimolina.

Ushkina's fifth medal and Garanichev's gold

And in Khanty-Mansiysk, the Russian biathlon championship ended, the most discussed athlete of which was Natalya Ushkina, who plans to move to the Romanian national team.

The 24-year-old athlete won the fifth medal in the tournament (taking into account the first stage, which took place on March 12-14), taking second place in the mass start.

On Saturday, she did not perform in the best way in the relay - she did not make a single mistake, but did not look good at the distance, as a result, the Mordovian national team finished only eighth.

But in the Sunday mass start, which closed the women's program of the competition, Ushkina never missed on the bench, thanks to which she was in the lead in the race with Larisa Kuklina.

Then Natalia still went into two penalties and lost her chance for gold, but from the second line no one could displace her.

After the race, Ushkina, answering a question from the correspondent of Match TV, did not rule out the possibility of staying in Russia and added that she needed to talk about this with the head of the Russian Biathlon Union, Viktor Maygurov.

“On the last frontier I saw Kuklina's mistake.

I was in a hurry and wanted to leave as soon as possible, so I made a mistake.

The track was a little broken, because it gets warm, "porridge" appears.

It is hard to touch your legs because they get stuck.

This Russian championship is a complete success for me, ”said the athlete.

Saturday men's mass start was remembered not so much for its results as for two episodes that occurred at the beginning of the race.

Even before the first firing line, Vadim Filimonov drew attention to himself.

While the biathletes were walking in a tight group, he suddenly stopped, creating a small traffic jam, and demonstrated to everyone that he was left without a stick.

In his right hand he held a lanyard, which he immediately threw at his rivals fleeing from him.

As it turned out, Filimonov had contact with Alexei Petrov, which cost the athlete dearly.

In the collision, he not only was left without a stick, but also damaged his rifle.

As a result, on the next two lines, Filimonov closed only one target and was forced to retire.

The judges did not disassemble this episode and somehow additionally punish the biathlete for throwing equipment at other participants in the race.

One of his favorites, Evgeny Garanichev, was also injured during the race.

Immediately after the first lying down, he also broke a stick.

Vyacheslav Maleev, a team-mate of the Tyumen Region, came to his rescue.

He gave away his inventory, and this sacrifice was not in vain.

Garanichev eventually won, winning a few seconds against Anton Babikov and Alexei Shevchenko.

And the championship ended with the men's relay, which was confidently won by the Bashkir national team consisting of Alexander Babchin, Anton Babikov, Alexei Petrov and Eduard Latypov.

Silver was taken by the KhMAO team (Dmitry Ivanov, Nikita Porshnev, Vadim Filimonov and Semyon Suchilov), and bronze - by Muscovites (Daniil Fomin, Matvey Eliseev, Ilya Gavrilov and Said Karimulla Khalili).