Golden acceleration: skeletonists Tretyakov and Nikitina started with victories at the World Cup

First on your favorite track

Russian skeleton athletes started their performance at the World Cup with a double victory.

The first stage of the competition took place in Igls, a suburb of Innsbruck.

Alexander Tretyakov and Elena Nikitina rose to the highest step of the podium.

The track in Igls can be called convenient and favorite for a Russian athlete.

Nikitina celebrated her first victory at the World Cup stages in Austria.

In total, she climbed to the highest step of the podium here four times until Friday.

The current tournament was no exception, although everything was not easy for the leader of the national team.

The first attempt for Elena was not very successful.

The athlete won only one section of the track, in the rest was worse than Kim Meilemans, who had never climbed above fifth place.

As a result, Nikitina lagged behind the Belgian by twelve hundredths of a second.

Before the second descent, the Russian woman worked on the mistakes.

Already at the start, she repeated the track acceleration record set by her earlier (5.11 seconds), and then worked perfectly at each of the sections.

Meilemans, it seems, was frightened of her agility herself and during the race she lost all her advantage, losing not only to Nikitina, but also to the representative of the Netherlands, Kimberly Bose.

However, this result for the athlete is in any case historical: she became the first representative of Belgium to climb the podium in a skeleton.

For Nikitina, this victory at the World Cup stage is already the 13th in her career.

By this indicator, she surpassed all other rivals.

German women Anja Selbach and Jacqueline Löhling won gold medals 12 times.

Another representative of Russia, Alina Tararychenkova, finished fourth.

For the athlete, this result was the best in her career, the domestic skeleton athlete lost one tenth of a second to Meilemans.

The second stage of the World Cup will also be held in Innsbruck, which means that Nikitina, who likes this track, has an excellent opportunity to climb the podium for the second time in a row, which has never happened in her career as the leader of the Russian national team.

In the fight for three Olympic tickets

The Russian men also pleased us with a good start.

Alexander Tretyakov has never won the first start of the season before, taking second or third places.

However, the Olympic year requires maximum concentration and attitude from the first descent.

But it was he who did not work out for Alexander.

The Russian showed only the 11th acceleration, which affected the speed of the first sections.

As a result, Tretyakov showed only the third time - after Martins Dukurs, to whom the Russian lost one tenth of a second, and Christopher Grother (+0.09 seconds).

The Russian made the second attempt stronger: this time it got a good acceleration and then the best time in three out of four sections.

Dukurs lost seven hundredths of a second to the domestic athlete, Grother - 0.16.

For Tretyakov, this victory was the 21st at the stages of the World Cup.

As the head coach of the Russian national bobsleigh and skeleton team Danil Chaban noted, the team had a task to win in Igls and Alexander managed to complete it.

“In the first race he made small mistakes, but in the second he managed to fix everything in a brilliant style: he added both at the start and on the track,” the specialist noted in an interview with TASS.

Another Russian Vladislav Semyonov finished fifth.

For him, this is the best result in his career.

Previously, the athlete took part in the World Cup only once: in St. Moritz in January of this year he was ninth.

Nikita Tregubov also made it to the top ten.

According to Chaban, in the rest of the stages, you need to act with the same confidence in order to win three Olympic quotas for the Games in Beijing.

“There is no time for buildup.

All three must hit at least the top ten at every stage of the World Cup.

And for the same Sasha, in addition, it is very important to be among the leaders at the end of the World Cup and win a profitable starting number at the Olympics, ”added the coach.

It should be noted that not all the strongest teams took part in the competition in Eagles.

So, representatives of the Korean national team, who did not arrive at the tournament after the test competitions in Beijing, could intervene in the distribution of places in the top five.

How dangerous these rivals are, we will see very soon: at the next stage of the World Cup.