10. Islam Makhachev (MMA)

Islam Makhachev brightest of all Russians showed himself in MMA in 2021. He has won three UFC victories, bringing his current unbeaten streak in the promotion to nine fights. Few have managed to even cage that often over the past 12 months, let alone win every fight, but the 30-year-old has made it through.

In the first fight of the year, Makhachev met with Drew Dober and took over thanks to a choke hold. The same was the result of the fight with Thiago Moises. But if the Russian fought with them for a long time, then for the next victory he had enough two and a half minutes. In October, Makhachev was supposed to meet with Rafael dos Anjos, but the UFC veteran withdrew from the fight. Then Dan Hooker became the rival of the Russian. The domestic fighter used kimura and forced his opponent to surrender. At the end of 2021, Makhachev rose from 12th place in the lightweight ranking to fourth.

Peter Yan could argue with Makhachev for the title of the best mixed martial arts fighter, but the year was not so great for him.

After an offensive defeat to Aljamain Sterling, he never got a rematch, so he had to fight for the interim title with Corey Sandhagen.

The Russian won a victory, but gave the fans a little less emotion than Makhachev.

9. Musa Evloev (wrestling)

Musa Yevloyev became another hero of the wrestling front in 2021.

Long before the Tokyo Olympics, he clearly indicated that he was going only for gold, having twice won the Greco-Roman wrestling world championships.

Shortly before the Games, he confirmed his form, winning two international tournaments and the European Championship, during which he gave his opponents only one point in all fights.

At the main tournament of the year, 28-year-old Yevloyev also looked convincing.

After winning three bouts, he had a chance to fight for gold with the reigning Olympic champion Artur Aleksanyan from Armenia.

The fight was expected to be stubborn, but after the first period the Russian led with a score of 5: 0, which was enough to win.

By that time, he had not lost at international competitions for more than three years.

8. Maxim Burov (freestyle)

In ski acrobatics last year there was no athlete better than Maxim Burov.

The 23-year-old Russian won absolutely everything the calendar allowed in his discipline.

The main achievement for him was the winning double at the World Championships in March.

First, a native of Yaroslavl defended his title in individual competitions, which before him had been done by only three acrobats in history, and then he celebrated his success in the team tournament.

Someone could argue that the world championship in Alma-Ata was not indicative, since the strong Chinese team did not participate in it.

But when she arrived at the World Cup stages in the new season, Burov continued to forge one victory after another.

In December, he won four out of four starts.

The Russian has already reached the fifth place among men in terms of the number of victories in the World Cup (14), despite the fact that he is still a fairly young athlete for his kind.

Of course, in 2021 Burov also won the Crystal Globe, the second in his career.

7.Andrey Vasilevsky and Nikita Kucherov (hockey)

Andrei Vasilevsky and Nikita Kucherov cannot be separated from each other.

The two have repeated the successful Stanley Cup campaign with the Tampa Bay Lightning, once again becoming the team's most irreplaceable members.

For Kucherov, the 2020/21 season immediately began with the playoffs. He missed the entire regular season due to hip surgery. It was impossible to believe that after such a break he would easily play with the same efficiency. However, the Russian broke all stereotypes. In the first match after his return, Kucherov scored a double and made an assist. He later scored 32 points in 23 matches and became the Stanley Cup top scorer for the second time in a row.

Kucherov called Vasilevsky the most useful player in the playoffs, and the league agreed with him.

The Russian goalkeeper became the first player in his role to win the Conn Smythe Trophy in nine years.

He helped Tampa win 16 wins, seven defeats and played five clean sheets, becoming the sixth goaltender in NHL history to do so.

At the same time, Vasilevsky was good both before the Stanley Cup, and after - in 2021, he set an NHL record for the total number of victories in a calendar year.

6. Abdulrashid Sadulayev (freestyle wrestling)

For Abdulrashid Sadulayev, 2021 was another year without defeat.

He won all the bouts in which he appeared on the carpet, including the two main tournaments of the season - the Olympic Games and the World Championships.

In Tokyo, the 25-year-old athlete arrived for his second gold medal and did not give a single point on the way to the final. Only in the last battle did he meet a worthy opponent - the American Kyle Snyder, who was the last to defeat Sadulayev. But the fight, equal at first, still ended with the victory of the Russian, who was later entrusted with carrying the national team's flag at the closing ceremony of the Games.

Two months later, the World Championship was held in Oslo, and Sadulayev became the only Olympian who decided to go to it.

There he performed almost the same as in Tokyo - he did not experience any problems with reaching the final and won gold in another fight with Snyder, only now defeating him dry.

A native of Dagestan, he became the youngest five-time world champion in freestyle wrestling and only the eighth athlete who won so many titles.

In 2021, Sadulayev came even closer to being considered the best fighter in history.

5. Artur Dalaloyan (artistic gymnastics)

For Artur Dalaloyan, the Olympic year began with a sports tragedy.

The day before leaving for the April European Championships, he was practicing floor exercises, when suddenly he was injured - a complete rupture of the Achilles tendon.

Three months remained before the Games, and the doctors stated that it would take six months to recover.

It seemed, like five years earlier, the Olympics had to give up.

But a real miracle happened - Dalaloyan made every effort to return to duty as soon as possible, and right before the Games, doctors allowed him to work on four shells.

And already in Japan, he decided that he would perform the full program.

Without his vault, the Russian national team would have had very few chances for medals in the team tournament, not to mention the fact that Arthur himself could no longer compete in the all-around.

Each exit of Dalaloyan to the platform could end in disaster both for him and for his partners.

However, he withstood the qualification, and in the final he even added and earned even more points in the overall piggy bank.

If Arthur had stumbled at least once because of an injured leg, the gold would have gone to Japan, but thanks to his heroism, Russian gymnasts won for the first time in 25 years.

Later, Dalaloyan also took part in the individual all-around and took sixth place.

4. Alexander Bolshunov (cross-country skiing)

For Alexander Bolshunov, 2021 began with the second consecutive victory at the Tour de Ski.

The new triumph on the main ski race was even more convincing - the Russian was not outside the top three at any of the eight stages, and also won five races in a row at the Tour de Ski third in history.

His lead over the second Frenchman Maurice Monifique was 3: 23.9 and became the largest in history.

But for Bolshunov, the main thing this year was another competition - the World Championship in Oberstdorf, in which he hoped to win his first gold medal.

After the sprint, in which he finished fourth, this task was completed in the skiathlon.

In the 30-kilometer race, Bolshunov in the last kilometers of the distance was left alone against five Norwegians, but managed to defeat them all.

Then he had silver in the relay and bronze in the team sprint, and the World Championship ended with perhaps the most scandalous episode in the tournament. In the 50 km marathon, Bolshunov was again single-handed to face Johannes Klebo and Emil Iversen. The Russian was the first to enter the finish line, but as a result of contact with Klebo, he broke a stick and remained third. After lengthy proceedings, the winner was disqualified, and Bolshunov moved up to second place.

The World Championship was not the last start for Bolshunov.

He won the next race in the World Cup and brought the number of victories in a season to ten.

By that time, it was already obvious that he would get the Big Crystal Globe again, and Bolshunov fought to win it by the largest margin in history.

If it were not for the cancellation of several stages, the Russian skier would certainly have achieved this.

As a result, he finished the season with a 965 points lead, showing the second best in history.

3. Nikita Nagorny (artistic gymnastics)

The Tokyo Olympics were a breakthrough for Russian artistic gymnastics, and this was largely due to Nikita Nagorny. He was the leader of a team that returned to the top of the podium 25 years later. It was he who had the most exciting moment of the competition - the fate of gold depended on how Nikita performed on the floor exercises. Nagorny withstood this tension and allowed the Russian national team to win by a margin of 0.103 points over Japan.

Nagorny achieved another achievement two days later.

He competed in the individual all-around, in which the Russians did not have medals for the same 25 years.

In this form, the Russian was the reigning world champion, so getting into the top three was expected.

Nagorny eventually became the bronze medalist, losing only 0.034 points in the dispute for silver.

He also made his way to three finals of individual exercises and in the last of them he also replenished his piggy bank of awards - a bronze on the crossbar.

Nagorny's successes in 2021 are not limited to the Tokyo Games.

Before that, he also performed well at the European Championships.

The 24-year-old athlete won the individual all-around for the second time in a row and won gold in the floor exercise.

To all this, he also added two silver - in exercises on the horse and rings.

2. Daniil Medvedev (tennis)

So far, Daniil Medvedev spends every year better than the previous one and conquers new heights. In 2021, he won his first Grand Slam tournament. A significant event for Russian tennis took place at the US Open. Medvedev made it to the final, losing only one set, and faced Novak Djokovic. The Serb was one step away from the fourth consecutive victory in the Major, but Medvedev did not spare his opponent and did not allow him to enjoy the triumph.

The Russian tennis player took revenge from Djokovic for the defeat in the final of the Australian Open-2021, where he also tried to win the prestigious title.

Medvedev's achievements this year also include winning the first matches at Roland Garros, winning the Masters in Toronto and reaching the decisive match of the ATP Final Tournament.

In addition, he firmly entrenched in the second line of the world rankings, becoming the first tennis player not from the Big Four in 16 years who succeeded.

Medvedev managed to combine personal successes with team achievements.

As part of the Russian national team, he won the ATP Cup and helped to win the Davis Cup for the first time in 15 years, and also acted as the representative of Europe in the Laver Cup, adding this trophy to his collection.

1. Evgeny Rylov (swimming)

1996 is the year when Russian swimmers for the last time became Olympic champions, and the year when the golden era of American athletes began in backstroke, who did not allow anyone to reach the top of the Olympic podium at distances of 100 and 200 meters.

Both of these series, which lasted a quarter of a century, were interrupted by Evgeny Rylov.

In Tokyo, he became the seventh champion in history to win a double in backstroke.

Rylov won the first of his gold medals in the 100-meter race, which is not his main discipline, which was confirmed by the preliminary heats.

However, in the final, he finished first, breaking the European record.

Rylov won only two hundredths of a second over his compatriot Kliment Kolesnikov.

Before the final of the 200 meters swim, in which Rylov was already the main favorite, he took part in the 4 x 200 meters freestyle relay and helped to win silver, breaking his stage with the second time in the team.

This swim also turned out to be nervous - three hundredths of a second separated the Russians from the Australians who finished third.

At the 200-meter distance Rylov immediately made it clear that he would not miss the gold.

In the final swim, he seized the lead and held it to the end, eventually winning almost a second over American Ryan Murphy.

In parallel, Rylov set an Olympic record and is now the only owner from Russia.

After such incredible achievements, the 25-year-old swimmer did not go to rest - he took part in relay races twice more, but they did not bring new awards.