"I see significant progress": Maximov on the shooting of Russian biathletes and the return of Babikov

- Would you call today's shooting conditions ideal, or were there problems?

- There was a small lottery.

At the sighting, the wind was gusty, and when the competition began, Alexander Povarnitsyn came to the line when there was absolute calm.

And, apparently, this made it difficult to orientate - there were two misses.

- Technically, does the transition from the gloomy conditions of Ostersund to the bright sun of Hochfilzen require adaptation?

- We did not come to the start of the competition, but three days before it started, so the athletes had the opportunity to practice.

Therefore, I do not think that the lighting conditions could somehow influence the result.

The only thing I would note is a kind of approach to the shooting range, which makes certain adjustments to the actions at the turn.

- What is this peculiarity?

- The fact that you have to go uphill.

This is a different pulse.

Therefore, we warned the athletes in advance to try to build the race somehow so as to make the approach as comfortable as possible.

Otherwise, there were no big difficulties.

In Hochfilzen, there is rarely a strong wind, except that there are isolated gusts, usually everyone fires very quickly and calmly enough.

But today the wind was stronger than usual.

- If we talk about the shooting of Russian biathletes, was there something that you did not expect?

- Yes.

These are three misses by Daniil Serokhvostov.

I think he could well fight.

Perhaps he just rushed to catch up after lying down, from where he left with one penalty loop.

It's a shame that Eduard Latypov did not pass the last dimension.

If this did not happen, it would be quite possible to fight for a place in the top three.

But I did not see any radical failures.

- Alexander Loginov was preparing for the season in another brigade, not in front of your eyes.

How difficult is it to judge in this case whether the only mistake was due to a mistake, or was it just an accident?

- I can't say for sure what happened.

Loginov fired on the opposite edge of the line, missed the first shot, but nothing was really visible from our position.

I would not call this a problem of different teams.

We worked with Loginov a year ago, as well as with Povarnitsyn or Vasily Tomshin.

From the fact that this season they began to work in a different team, nothing has changed radically.

- Agree, it is always easier to draw conclusions about the readiness of an athlete when a person is in front of his eyes every day.

- Yes, but now we are no longer talking about the trends that took place in training.

Now there is a competitive implementation of everything that has been developed.

As a shooting coach, are you happy with what you see?

- It seems to me that some global conclusions in this regard should be made after the season is over.

Or after the Olympics.

At the moment, I see significant progress.

It is clear that it is not so easy for such a young athlete like Serokhvostov to progress through the World Cup.

But if we talk about the rest, I see a certain dynamics of shooting performance.

Everyone is trying to correct the shortcomings, we analyze each mistake together, we do everything possible so that it does not repeat itself.

That is, we are going on not only a competitive process, but also a training one.

- When you talk about significant progress, what exactly do you mean?

Hit accuracy or some other indicators?

Let's start by saying it's easy enough to jump from 70 percent hits to 85 percent. But to overcome the "fork" 85-90 is already much more difficult. For the leaders, this indicator reaches 92. Therefore, we always go from first to raise the quality of fire, and only then to start working on such things as the rate of fire. In this regard, all our guys had their own tasks. With regard to the same Latypov, we do not have the task of teaching him to shoot rhythmically until he has learned to shoot consistently accurately. When his scores rise to 92 percent, then both confidence will come and the rhythm will rise. And trying to artificially reduce the shooting time in order to get an additional penalty loop and lose 24-25 seconds as a result ... I am a pragmatist in this regard. I think it's better to stay at the turnthan headlong to run the penalty loop and in a driven state to leave it at a distance.

- Which of your players has the highest shooting performance?

- Karim Khalili, Serokhvostov and Latypov.

I'm talking about training metrics now.

Then the nervous system begins to play its role: to what extent a person is ready to realize what he has gained in training, under conditions of competitive stress.

But the guys are all smart, competent, try very hard, and, of course, none of them can be happy when mistakes happen.

I can also say that in the process of pre-season training, we worked in the shooting plan absolutely all situations that may arise in races: strong wind, poor or uneven lighting, duel shooting, the fastest approach to the line, shooting while holding the rifle for a long time ... Now we just it remains to collect everything that has been worked out together and with this go to the Olympic Games.

- Returning to Khalili, who has less biathlon experience than the others, how great is his shooting progress over the past year?

- At the beginning of this season, Karim had a fairly high percentage of hits: 90 lying and 88 standing.

It is quite difficult to maintain such a level without having a lot of experience in the World Cup, but in the sprint race Khalili worked his shooting perfectly, you yourself saw it.

Plus, he has good timing indicators: while lying down, Khalili shoots in 28-30 seconds, and this is the top-6 level.

Standing Khalili last season also shot very quickly - in 26-28 seconds.

This is a very competitive time.

- Anton Babikov is performing well at the IBU Cup now, and everyone understands that the day is not far off when Babikov will need to be called up to the first team.

Does this add stress to those running in the World Cup now?

 - When I myself was an athlete, running in the IBU Cup, of course, dreamed of earning the right to go to the World Cup as soon as possible.

But then another question arises: who to change, if the whole main team performs with dignity, gets into the points zone?

After all, coaches have to consider many factors in such cases.

Sometimes you just need to be able to wait.

And think not about competing with those with whom you are on the same team.

It’s about fighting the strongest in order to win.