If a film is ever shot about Natalya Nepryaeva, the mass start with a skate uphill will perhaps become the central part of this scenario.

The uphill race is the most interesting part of the Tour de Ski, from the outside it's just space.

Though for those on the inside, it's hell.

Probably someone will shrug their shoulders in disbelief: what is the intrigue when the stock is huge and exceeds one minute, and the main thing is to just keep it? Not the longest distance, besides? But the mountain changes everything. Here, every kilometer is like an endless marathon. Divide the 72 seconds advantage by 10, and you will realize that this handicap is not that solid. Especially in women, who are much more subject to emotions than male racers, and have a habit of rushing headlong into an adventure, without thinking at all about how it all might end. And, by the way, if you remember the “Tour de Ski” a year ago and exactly the same final race, Nepryaeva lost a minute and 39 seconds to the Swede Ebbe Andersson.

The synopsis of the race itself, in cinematic terms, was primitive: Andersson, Norwegian Heidi Veng and Finnish Krista Pärmäkoski almost from the very start began to run forward, and Nepryaeva tried to hold on to them. At first - close, then began to lag behind, but not much: at the 7.5 km cutoff, the difference between Natalia and the Norwegian-Swedish-Finnish trio was 9.8 seconds, but this was the very line followed by the most bloodthirsty part of the distance: the steepest, almost 30-degree rise.

From a cinematic point of view, by the way, it was a very ill-advised decision to change the format of the final race of the Tour de Ski - to make it a mass start, not a pursuit.

Sport, like no other occupation, knows how to create heroes, but heroism is when you run in front, not allowing those behind you to catch up with you, tear you apart, destroy you. 

It is generally accepted that the leader's yellow jersey inspires the athlete, adding confidence, but in fact it turns into an additional burden much more often.

Because a leader is a reference point, a potential prey.

Sounds cruel?

Maybe.

But the leader also has to constantly be cruel - towards himself.

President of the Russian Cross-Country Skiing Federation, three-time Olympic champion Elena Vyalbe burst into tears after my congratulations: "Believe me, I dreamed of this victory for 11 years, from the very moment I came to work in the federation."

Did the great skier know that it was Nepryaeva who would make her dream come true?

Probably not.

At the Games in Pyeongchang, where Natalia won bronze, she was just one athlete from the relay four.

A year later, at the World Championships in Seefeld, the first individual bronze took place and another - in the relay, and it was there that Nepryaeva's coach Yuri Borodavko recalled how Natasha was removed from the group of Markus Kramer by order of the president of the federation.

How she cried when she got to Wart, believing that the loads that the new coach offered her were outrageous and impossible to withstand.

But somehow I worked, learned how to more competently distribute forces at distances, to take on what was never considered her skate (like that "bronze" skiathlon in Seefeld).

And somehow it was no longer surprising when a year ago Natasha won the silver medal at the World Championship in the relay just a month after a rather complicated hand fracture.

Actually, her victory in the Tour de Ski also happened in many respects in spite of.

You can remember how, due to a sudden sore throat, Natalya almost made a decision to abandon the multi-day event altogether, but she stayed - Alexander Legkov persuaded.

On Monday, after winning the classic mass start, Nepryaeva said that she considers the Val di Fiemme mountains to be a very happy place for herself, starting with the 2014 junior world championship (where Natalya won the 5 km classic).

That here everything works out for her.

Almost always.

Could she have failed in the final race?

Maybe yes.

Moreover, if Natasha had missed the Tour's main prize - a crystal pyramid with almost steep slopes, it certainly would not have looked like a tragedy.

We would probably just repeat Vyalbe's words in different ways that a mountain is a complex story, where you can play everything at the final four hundred meters.

That a skate uphill is not Nepryaeva's “skate” at all, because she is a very muscular athlete, heavy enough for such tests ...

And now it seems that there are no suitable words.

Feat?

Undoubtedly.

Inhuman overcoming?

Too.

It is no coincidence that Natasha herself said after the finish:

“A very tough race, the hardest of the season.

To be honest, I didn't quite understand who is who, but I heard that the coaches were standing all over the mountain.

I kept (lagging behind the leaders) for about 15-20 seconds, tried not to lose sight of my backs.

Just go and control.

But the last few meters I was driving just on autopilot ... "

But the main thing is not the historical victory achieved.

And the fact is that, according to the athlete herself, she is only gaining shape, preferring to do it through starts.

And the Tour de Ski in this regard is just a stage of preparation for the main start.