“She just cut me off”: why Russian skiers were left without medals in the sprint at the KM stage in Finland

Less than a week after the end of the Beijing Olympics, the skiers went to the next stage of the World Cup in Finland.

However, in just a few days the political situation in the world has changed so much that the Russians were no longer welcome guests in Lahti.

In the evening on the eve of the skating sprint around the hotel, where domestic athletes lived, a column of cars drove in circles and honked.

And the organizers of the competition said that threatening messages were sent to the three-time Olympic champion Alexander Bolshunov and his colleagues, so they had to increase security at the tournament.

At the same time, the International Ski Federation followed the recommendations of the IOC and banned the tricolor and the national anthem from competitions.

In such conditions, it was, of course, difficult to perform.

But the Russians qualified quite confidently.

With the third time, Natalya Nepryaeva advanced to the next stage, losing only to Swede Jonna Sundling and American Jessica Diggins.

Tatyana Sorina was also selected.

In men, Alexander Terentiev, Bolshunov, Gleb Retivykh and Sergey Ardashev got into the top thirty.

However, already in the quarter-finals, the representation of Russians in the sprint significantly decreased.

Sorina was the first to drop out of the fight.

She was only third in the race, which was confidently won by Swede Maya Dahlqvist.

Difficult rivals went to Ardashev: he performed together with the Norwegian Johannes Klebo and the Frenchman Luka Shanava.

The domestic athlete finished only fourth and, taking into account not the highest speed at the distance, could not claim to be a lucky loser.

For a long time, Alexander Terentiev kept his chances of reaching the semi-finals.

The first in his race was the Norwegian Howard Töugböl, and then the photo finish distributed the places.

The Italian Federico Pellegrino went to the second line, the Finn Yoni Myaki became the third, and the Russian only the fourth, however, due to a good result, he remained among the contenders for entering the next stage of the tournament.

Bolshunov took the offensive third place.

Before the finish, he confidently held on to second position behind the Norwegian Sindre Scar, but at the last moment, the Frenchman Richard Jouve jumped out from behind him.

Alas, the last race turned out to be the fastest, so none of the Alexandrovs could go further.

It attracted the attention of the Chinese Wang Qiang, who trains with Olympic champion Nikita Kryukov.

The athlete went further and at the same time acted very confidently at a distance.

In the semi-finals, the Russian fans only had to worry about Nepryaeva and the Zealous, who calmly made their way to the next stage of the tournament.

The girls were the first to hit the track again.

The domestic athlete was in an unpleasant company.

In her rivals, she had three representatives of Sweden at once: Sundling, Emma Ribom and Dahlqvist, who decided to use team tactics.

The Scandinavians took the lead and did not allow other skiers to bypass themselves.

No matter how hard Nepryaeva tried to slip through, in the end she remained only fourth, but the time shown allowed her to go to the final as a loser bow and already there for the second time try to compete with the Swedes.

Zealous had a great semi-final.

At first, he walked at the end of the peloton, but gradually approached the leaders.

Already by the middle of the distance, the Russian took a position behind Scar and calmly held on to him until the last straight, and then made a breakthrough and even fought for the first line, while not giving room for a breakthrough to Bolshunov’s offender Zhuv.

Wang Qiang finished third and was again among the lucky losers.

Unfortunately, in the finals, the Russians could not build on their success.

In the decisive race for women, Anamaria Lampich became an anti-hero, who frankly interfered with everyone in the race.

At first, she took the lead, but Sundling quickly overtook her rival.

The Slovenian could not keep up with the pace of the Swede, but at the same time, with her actions on the track, she did not allow other girls to give chase.

Jonna made a decent lead already in the middle of the distance and removed the question of the winner.

There was a tough fight for second place.

Nepryaeva did not occupy the most convenient, last position, although it was clear that the athlete had plenty of strength.

However, on the rise in front of the stadium, Lampich stood in front of her and did not allow her to get closer to the leaders, and then, directly at the finish line, the Slovenian for some reason jumped from her ski track to the one on which Nepryaeva began to accelerate, and deprived the Russian woman of the chance to compete for a medal.

After the performance, Natalya was outraged by the behavior of her rival on the track.

The leader of the World Cup said that the skier broke the rules.

“I hope it gets removed!

You can't do that, you can't cut it.

I think this should be punished.

She just cut me off.

I didn’t talk to her at the finish line, but what’s the point?

Today was hard, but in the final it was very hard.

A little was not enough.

Prior to that, I felt quite confident in the race, but in the final I hung, ”the Russian woman noted.

In the men's final, all the Zealous cards were mixed by the Chinese.

Gleb chose the same tactics as in the previous race: from the end of the peloton he slowly moved forward.

However, on one of the turns, Wang Qiang unsuccessfully fell right on the skis of the Russian.

He held on, but precious seconds were lost and there was simply no time left to catch up with the leading group.

The first to cross the finish line is almost unbeatable in the sprint this season, Klebo.