Without flowers: Reztsova finished seventh in the women's sprint at the KM stage in Oberhof

The program of the fifth stage of the Biathlon World Cup in Oberhof continued with a women's sprint.

The girls had to go to the start almost immediately after the men, whose race began in extremely difficult weather conditions.

The snow no longer bothered the participants so much, but the wind still sometimes walked around the shooting range, causing a lot of problems.

After the New Year, there was one change in the Russian women's team.

Anastasia Shevchenko took the same path as Anton Babikov.

After successful performances in the IBU Cup, where she leads the overall standings, the 22-year-old biathlete got a chance to gain a foothold in the team.

It would be great happiness for the team if it revealed itself at a new level for itself - after all, apart from Christina Reztsova this season, none of the girls have shown their best side so far.

On Friday, Reztsova was the first of the Russians to enter the fight for medals, who got the seventh starting number.

Previously, only the owner of the yellow jersey Martha Røiseland started her as a favorite.

The Norwegian, on the way to the first shooting, showed the best speed, but did not remain the leader for long - until she missed the last shot while lying down.

Reztsova, on the other hand, worked well at the turn.

Having covered all the targets, she was ahead of Reyseland by 24.4 seconds.

In addition to the Russians, very few people managed to pass the first shooting purely.

The exception was the former compatriot Alina Stremous, who now represents the national team of Moldova.

With this move, she lost to Reztsova for half a minute.

Over time, other biathletes began to approach the intermediate result of the Russian athlete.

Italian Dorothea Wierer, Slovak Paulina Fialkova and Norwegian Ingrid Tandrevold, thanks to clean shooting, were located less than ten seconds from Reztsova.

The next Russian woman, Ulyana Nigmatullina, was not so close to her teammate - two misses threw her away from the leaders.

On the second lap, Reztsova broke away from Reiseland for another ten seconds, and even taking into account the fact that the race had just started, it was an excellent application for a medal.

But the second shooting of the Russian woman did not work out right away.

Two misses caused by a gust of wind increased her distance by 300 meters.

Reztsova returned to the track 20 seconds away from the Norwegian and further fell behind.

But against the background of other girls who tried to take advantage of Reztsova's misfires, she still ran very well. Tandrevold with one penalty was able to bypass the Russian biathlete by only 3.5 seconds, and Wierer, who also entered the penalty loop, was generally behind. Reztsova stayed in the top three until the miracles of speed were shown by the Belarusian Anna Sola. Having made two mistakes on the prone, she almost displaced Reyseland from the first place.

For other Russian women, things were not going so well. Nigmatullina, after a discouraging start, was even more disappointed - she forgot to run the penalty loop after a mistake on the stand and got an additional two minutes by her time. Irina Kazakevich worked cleanly on the bench and ended up in the middle of the second ten, but then left two targets uncovered. Svetlana Mironova and Anastasia Shevchenko made three mistakes each. The latter could have pleased Valeria Vasnetsova with shooting, but she could not do without two misfires.

While most of the Russian girls were fighting for cup points and the opportunity to compete in Sunday's pursuit, Reztsova watched from the outside as her rivals gradually bypassed her and made it impossible to get into the flower ceremony.

Anais Chevalier from France won only three tenths of a second from the leader of the Russian national team.

Then, with two penalties, the Belarusian Dinara Alimbekova moved up to the intermediate third place.

The last change in the leading three was made by Julia Simon - the representative of France showed the same time with Sola and shared the second place with her.

As a result, Reztsova was on the seventh line, which for her personally became the third best result in her career and will give a chance to fight in the pursuit.

The next of the Russians in 24th place was Vasnetsova, followed by Kazakevich.

Mironova was selected fourth in the pursuit, and Nigmatullina and Shevchenko finished their performance in Oberhof, since the RBU did not choose them to participate in Saturday's mixed relay races.