The mass start at the Anterselva World Cup was the last opportunity for biathletes to test their strength before the Beijing Olympics.

Daniil Serokhvostov and Alexander Loginov missed a similar men's race the day before.

The head coach of the Russian women's team, Mikhail Shashilov, decided to do otherwise and announced four athletes from the main team.

Only Svetlana Mironova did not take part in the race due to illness.

The attention of Russian fans was primarily riveted to Kristina Reztsova.

She managed to win the only personal medal in her career at the KM in the mass start - this happened a month ago in Annecy, France.

Then, having made two misses at the shooting range, she showed a good finish: she outran several rivals on the last lap, including the Italian Dorothea Wierer, and became the third.

Not all the strongest biathletes took part in the Sunday race.

The mass start was missed by representatives of the Swedish national team Hanna and Elvira Oeberg, as well as Mona Brorsson.

The leader of the overall World Cup standings, Marte Ryseland, did not begin to appear either.

However, even in their absence there were enough dangerous rivals.

Reztsova confidently passed the first round, having settled down in the leading group.

On the bench, the athlete had no problems.

Her compatriots Valeria Vasnetsova and Ulyana Nigmatullina also worked cleanly.

However, many biathletes demonstrated perfect shooting - 13 girls closed all the targets.

The impression of a good start of the Russians was blurred by the second shooting.

Kristina and Valeria missed once and moved from the top ten to the second.

The Frenchwoman Julie Simon took the lead, the Belarusian Dinara Alimbekova, as well as the Norwegians Tiril Eckhoff and Ingrid Tandrevold were very close.

Reztsova withstood the speed of her rivals and approached the third firing line with the same backlog from the leaders.

At the same time, she won back a couple of positions, moving from 12th to ninth line, and after clean shooting she rose to sixth place.

Anais Chevalier was the first to leave the shooting range 20 seconds earlier than the Russians. But at a distance, the Frenchwoman quickly went around Eckhoff. The current owner of the "Big Crystal Globe" for a long time could not get in shape this season, due to illness she missed one of the stages of the World Cup. However, it cannot be said that the Norwegian has fully recovered. Her lead lasted until the fourth shooting range, where she made two misses and struck herself out of the contenders for the medals.

But Chevalier again closed all the targets and once again led the race.

Could intervene in the fight for awards with clean shooting on the rack and Reztsova.

She rolled out to the stadium fifth in the company of Virer and Alimbekova.

But the miracle didn't happen.

Christina did not close one target, while the French and Italian were accurate and rushed in pursuit of Chevalier.

Reztsova left the shooting range fourth, 35.5 seconds back.

Despite the fact that Anais did not look as strong as her rivals, the Russian woman could not win back half a minute.

Wierer eventually won the race.

This is her first gold this season.

Alimbekova finished second, Chevalier closed the top three.

Reztsova took fourth place and moved up to 13th position in the overall World Cup standings, securing her participation in the mass start at the Olympics.

In addition, she comes second in this type of program and has a good chance of winning the Small Crystal Globe.

After the race, Anfisa Reztsova complained about her daughter's extra miss.

According to the three-time Olympic champion, it was he who deprived Christina of the medal.

“If my daughter didn’t miss, she would fight Dorothea Wierer for gold - Christina has everything for this.

I feel really bad for Christina.

I told her today: “You will be the third”, but it didn’t work out, unfortunately.

Everything was decided by the last mistake.

Now the main goal is the Olympics.

We will prepare, watch and cheer.

Not the worst last start before the games.

I hope everything will be fine with my daughter, ”Championship quotes Reztsova Sr.

As for other Russians, Nigmatullina eventually became the eighth.

Ulyana made only one mistake, but could not stand the speed of her rivals.

On the first lap, she lost to the best time of 11.6 seconds, and then this figure increased significantly. 

Vasnetsova missed four times, and at a distance she only had enough strength for half the race.

The fourth round Valeria was a minute slower than Alimbekova and finished 15th.

Kazakevich again experienced problems with shooting, also making four errors.

However, this time she was still unable to demonstrate her speed, closing the top twenty of the strongest.