The mass start at the Biathlon World Cup in Anterselva was the last personal race on the eve of the Olympic Games and the first this year for Eduard Latypov. The Russian reached Italy the day before after a 14-day quarantine in Oberhof and even managed to train. Saturday's performance was supposed to give an answer to how badly the athlete's form had suffered due to the lack of the opportunity to fully train in Germany. The result, unfortunately, does not inspire much optimism.
Latypov confidently started the race and kept at the beginning of the peloton. The biathlete managed to work out the first prone position cleanly and leave the shooting range ninth. The Norwegian Sivert Bakken, who was leading at that moment, was ahead of Eduard by only 15.3 seconds. During the second round, the Russian was in no way inferior to his rivals in speed and came to the firing line with the same small lag. And then problems began: due to gusty winds, the biathlete made four misses and crossed himself out of the list of contenders for medals. Together with accuracy, speed at a distance also went away. The backlog from the group of leaders began to gradually grow. In total, with four misses in the remaining two standings at the finish line, it turned into four minutes and 12.9 seconds.
The Russian showed the worst shooting among all participants in the mass start.
New Zealander Campbell Wright and Norwegian Philip Andersen also made eight misses.
However, the head coach of the men's team Yuri Kaminsky calmly reacted to this result.
According to the specialist, Latypov completed the task normally from the point of view of the course.
“Shooting failed.
The person was out of competition for a month and was probably sick.
We will work to correct the mistakes, ”the coach said on Match TV.
However, Latypov himself explained his not the highest speed by the fact that after a large number of misses he did not work at the maximum.
“I started calmly, didn’t twitch too much, didn’t try to win back positions.
I went at my own pace and the next circles the same way.
With each circle, despite the fact that he shot a lot of penalties, internal forces became greater.
I understood that I didn’t get tired, but already at the end I didn’t twist myself so as not to make it worse.
In such a race, it cannot be said that everything is deplorable.
We continue to work, ”said the biathlete.
In the meantime, after Latypov's 25th place, experts again raised the issue of a possible replacement of the athlete with Babikov in the Olympic team.
By the will of fate, in addition to Eduard, only Anton took part in the mass start.
Daniil Serokhvostov and Alexander Loginov skipped the race by decision of the coaching staff.
Therefore, performance on Saturday could be considered as a duel between two Russians.
Babikov sought not only to compete for medals, but also to be higher than Latypov in the final protocol. The athlete coped with the second task, finishing tenth. However, the shooting of the biathlete, according to Kaminsky, did not suit the coaching staff. Anton missed four times: once on the prone and twice on the last rack. If the Russian were more accurate at the last shooting range, he could compete for medals. But mass starts are insidious because it is psychologically difficult for any biathlete to shoot at the same time as his rivals. However, Babikov himself explained his mistakes by the fact that he could not cope with the gusts of wind.
“At the last stand we got into a strong rush, but there were mistakes nearby.
It hurts.
The conditions at sighting and in the race were very different.
I shot at the left edge of the shooting range, there it’s a little unclear from the flags where the wind is blowing, the turbulence is small, somewhere, maybe I misjudged or something has already changed during the shooting.
These are small mistakes that I analyzed, corrected and forgot, ”Babikov admitted.
The athlete did not look very powerful in his move either.
He showed the ninth result at a distance, only 17.1 seconds ahead of the "dismantled" Latypov.
As for the fight for medals, here again the Norwegian Johannes Boe was in the foreground. Already on the first lap, he turned up such a speed that he managed to create a gap in the peloton. However, once again, his desire to escape from everyone ended in a miss at the firing line. In the second round, the Olympic champion caught up with the group of leaders and, after accurate prone shooting, left the shooting range paired with Benedikt Doll.
The German has only once climbed the podium this season, finishing second in the sprint at Ruhpolding. But it should be noted that in comparison with the beginning of the season in the last races, he looked good. So in the mass start, the biathlete was able to catch on to Be at a distance. The Norwegian dragged Doll on himself for the entire third lap, and as a result, the biathletes came to the stand with a decent advantage over their pursuers. It was enough for him to, even if he made a mistake, still leave the shooting range with the same duet.
At the last shooting, Johannes missed again, but went through the penalty meters so quickly that he was only 7.1 seconds behind Doll, who was accurate.
It seemed that Boe would bypass the German even before the first time cutoff on the track.
But, to the surprise of the fans, the backlog of the Norwegian began to grow, and at the finish line it reached 31.3 seconds.
Benedict rolled into the stadium all alone and, it seems, he was very surprised by this.
He looked back, but did not see the reigning World Cup winner on the horizon.
Doll won a personal race for the first time in his career.
Boe this season for the third time climbed the podium, however, it seems that this is not at all the result that can satisfy him.
Sturla Legrade finished third.
He made three misses, like his compatriot, but lost 57.5 seconds to Johannes at a distance.