The program of the fourth stage of the Biathlon World Cup ended with the first races of the season from a general start.
To participate in them, 30 best men and women were selected based on the results of previous starts.
The Russian national team had the largest representation - four girls and five men got into the mass start.
Even the all-powerful Norwegians and the French had one less athlete in total.
Kristina Reztsova, Ulyana Nigmatullina, Svetlana Mironova and Irina Kazakevich made their way to the women's 12.5 km race.
Usually, Russian girls in the mass start are content with supporting roles.
It has not been possible to win medals in this form since March 2019, when Ekaterina Yurlova-Perkht became the silver medalist of the World Championship.
But this time, high expectations were associated with Reztsova. The day before, she performed encouragingly in the pursuit. If the daughter of the Olympic champion had not had a starting gap and at least one miss out of three, she would certainly have risen to the podium. In the last race in 2021, one condition for the 25-year-old athlete was met by default, the second had to be handled by herself.
Reztsova approached the first line as part of a dense leadership group, in which the Russian woman tried not to fall below fifth place. The Swede Hannah Eberg worked the fastest of all on the bench, and the rest of the biathletes immediately had to join in the pursuit of her. Among those who did not linger on the penalty loop was Reztsova. Nigmatullina also had five hits. Interestingly, the Italian Lisa Vittozzi, who was shooting next to her, never hit the target, and immediately there could be fears that she could shoot at a nearby target. Fortunately, this assumption was not confirmed, and no one could dispute the accurate shooting of the Russian woman.
Nigmatullina's move was not so good, and a gap of five seconds was formed between her and the leaders.
Reztsova, on the other hand, felt great in the general group and was one of the first to return to the shooting range.
It soon became clear that a new athlete would lead the race - Eberg the elder made three mistakes at once.
The number of participants who never fired past dropped to nine, and Reztsova became one of them.
Moreover, among them, the Russian woman was one of the fastest.
She returned to the track almost simultaneously with the French women Julia Simon and Anais Chevalier-Boucher, forming a leadership trio with them.
However, during the next lap, Italian Dorothea Wierer and Austrian Lisa Teresa Hauser tried to keep a short distance behind them.
Soon, the two groups of athletes changed places. The pursuers worked cleanly on the stand, while the three leaders had one miss each. Between Simon and Reztsova, Belgian Lotte Lie was also unexpectedly found, for whom the very participation in the mass start was a sensation. She could not compete with the French and the Russian for a long time, especially since on the penultimate lap they began to close the gap with Wierer and Hauser. Before the final shooting, the first five were at a quite tangible distance from each other.
At the last turn, none of the leaders escaped the penalty loop, and this allowed two more athletes to intervene in the fight for medals - the unmistakable Czech Jessica Jislova and the medalist of the three previous races Elvira Oeberg. Simon and Wierer returned to the track after them, and Reztsova became the fifth, losing only 5.5 seconds to the first place. This company had an obvious favorite and an obvious outsider. Oeberg immediately pulled away from all the girls and chased her second victory in a row. Yislova almost did not prevent the other three girls from fighting for the two remaining medals.
Simon, Wierer and Reztsova postponed the showdown until the finish line. It was only there that the final arrangement was decided - the Frenchwoman pleased her native fans with silver, and the Russian won bronze. Reztsova's first medal in her career interrupted a two-year series of Russian women without medals in individual races. In the overall standings of the World Cup, she rose to ninth place. According to the athlete, she was a little short of enough to get around Simon in the last meters.
“To be honest, I thought it would be harder, that everyone would initially push, kick, but everyone went smoothly, without falling. In the end, I already fought with the Frenchwoman literally to the last descent. I don’t know why it happened that I fell behind again on the descent, although I worked with my legs to the end. Maybe a little tired already. At the finish line, of course, I celebrated. This is a medal, this is a personal medal! I'm ready to cry. I am very happy. The career is precisely divided into "before" and "after". The coolest thing is the feeling in every race that I can fight, ”Reztsova told Match TV.
Elvira Oeberg does it again - this time in the @BiathlonALGB mass start and first podium for Kristina Reztsova!
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🥇🇸🇪 Elvira Oeberg
🥈🇫🇷 Julia Simon @FedFranceSki
🥉🇷🇺 Kristina Reztsova @russianbiathlon
Watch all competitions live on https://t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/xdE3UiiiBn
- BMW IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) December 19, 2021
Eduard Latypov could climb the podium on the same day.
The competition in Annecy has already brought him two silver medals.
Another medal would allow him to become the first Russian in five years who would not leave the podium throughout the entire stage.
The last to achieve this was Anton Shipulin.
At first, Latypov really claimed a lot in the mass start.
Although he did not try to run ahead of the main group, after the first shooting he was already second, being behind the back of the Norwegian Sivert Bakken.
19 athletes managed to close five targets, including Alexander Loginov, Karim Khalili, and Alexander Povarnitsyn, but the winners of the previous races, the Norwegian Johannes Boe and the Frenchman Kenten Fillon Maillet, were not.
In the course of the second lap, it became noticeable that Latypov was no longer running as fast as in the previous days.
Leadership immediately in 12 seconds was captured by another owner of the track, Emilien Jacquelin, and a long line of pursuers followed the Russian.
He was relieved of this burden by a miss on the second shooting.
Loginov and Khalili also made mistakes, and Daniil Serokhvostov became the best among the Russians, who rose to 11th place.
Latypov and Loginov still had chances for medals, for which it was necessary to go through the purely first stand. And if for this it was necessary to close only four targets, then they coped with this task. But there were five targets, and both the last shot was inaccurate. Instead of fighting for the podium, the Russians went to the middle of the second decade. Alexander Povarnitsyn rose to 11th place due to perfect shooting, but he could not compete with the leaders in distance.
The final shooting also did not work out for the Russian biathletes, only due to the mistakes of others, Loginov and Latypov even managed to get closer to the top ten.
As a result, the twice silver medalist of the stage in Annecy finished 12th, and his partner closed the top 15.
The victory was celebrated by Jacquelin, who made one mistake during the entire race.
At the finish line, he won only 3.5 seconds against Fillon Maillet, who missed twice.
Norwegian Tarjei Boe moved up to third place.
What a final competition!
World Cup victory # 3 for Emilien Jacquelin in the @BiathlonALGB mass start!
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🥇🇫🇷 @ EmilienJck @ FedFranceSki
🥈🇫🇷 @quentinfillon
🥉🇳🇴 Tarjei Boe @NSSF_Biathlon
Watch the action in @biathlonALGB on https://t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/ciFsZDOzEK
- BMW IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) December 19, 2021