“Yohaug is no longer invincible”: Nepryaeva took second place in the classic “trimming” at the KM stage in Finland

Nepryaev is getting closer to Yohaug

The World Cup stage in Finnish Lahti continued with classic style races from a separate start.

The girls were the first to enter the 10 km distance.

The strongest were supposed to appear on the track in the second half of the race: the leader of the overall World Cup standings, Natalya Nepryaeva, received the 36th start number, and the four-time Olympic champion Therese Johaug - 60th.

Swedes Ebba Andersson, Frida Karlsson, as well as the winner of Saturday's sprint Jonna Sundling ran ahead of the Russian.

The Beijing Olympic champion is also good in distance competitions, which the skier demonstrated this time as well.

The athlete confidently ran the race, and it was her time that became the benchmark for the main group of contenders for medals.

Nepryaeva did not immediately increase her speed and at the first control cut-offs she lost to the Swede for a couple of seconds.

However, by the middle of the distance she was able to create an advantage of 19.3 seconds, which then began to grow rapidly.

Perhaps the fact that Johaug entered the track right in front of the Russian woman also influenced, and Natalia just had to hold on to her rival, not letting go far ahead.

At the last control cut-off, Sundling's time was already 35.4 seconds worse than the Russian's.

At the finish line, the domestic athlete won a couple more seconds and confidently ascended the throne, specially erected for the intermediate leader of the competition.

Finnish skiers Kerttu Niskanen and Krista Permyakoski tried to fight the result of Nepryaeva.

The last one managed to get closer, however, and she lost 15.3 seconds to the Olympic champion.

So only Johaug remained the only competitor of Natalia.

The Norwegian confidently passed the first round, overtaking her rival by 9.6 seconds.

But the Russian woman was faster in the second part of the distance, so Teresa's advantage slowly began to decrease and 1.3 km before the finish line was only 5.5 seconds.

The last meters were hard for the four-time Olympic champion.

At the finish line, she won by only 1.2 seconds and was madly happy about this labor victory.

Natalya, seeing the time of the Norwegian, cursed and went to congratulate her.

At the same time, she continued to smile, because she had no reason to be upset.

In the overall standings of the World Cup, Nepryaeva only strengthened her position.

The closest pursuer, American Jessica Diggins, failed the race, taking only 19th place.

Yohaug missed half of the season, so she is not fighting for the Big Crystal Globe this year.

As for the result, the loss of 1.2 seconds is rather a reason for optimism.

According to Olympic medalist Alexander Panzhinsky, the four-time Olympic champion has ceased to be invincible.

“Natasha is showing great form, which she had at the Tour de Ski, during the Olympics, and now she is performing strongly.

Almost defeated the invincible Teresa Johaug.

Natasha's confidence is growing with each race as she moves towards victory in the overall standings.

Yohaug no longer seems invincible this season.

Nevertheless, she took three gold medals at the Olympic Games, and the longer the distance, the stronger she is, ”the Championship specialist quotes.

Alas, the rest of the girls did not support their compatriot and did not get into the top ten.

The best result was shown by Tatyana Sorina.

She finished 13th, over a minute behind the leader.

The decisive three kilometers

In any distance race in the classic style for men, the main favorite of the competition is Iivo Niskanen.

In Lahti, the skier had a special motivation to take first place: he was incredibly supported by his native fans.

Under loud shouts of joy, he went to the start.

"Ivo, Ivo!"

- shouted to him on the track.

He went to the distance 46th, ahead of his main competitors Alexander Bolshunov and Johannes Klebo, but before him there were skiers who wanted to compete for prizes.

High speed on Sunday was shown by the Russians Alexey Chervotkin and Ilya Semikov, as well as the Swede William Poroma and the Norwegian Martin Nyenget.

They ran smoothly throughout the race with a gap of a few seconds from each other, periodically changing places in the intermediate protocol.

This continued until the last three kilometers, which turned out to be the most difficult for skiers.

It was evident from the movements that Semikov and Nuenget were already tired by this moment, so a small gap from Porom began to slowly grow.

Chervotkin, in turn, kept the speed, but he eventually lost exactly four seconds to the Swede.

At first it seemed that even Niskanen could not compete with William.

He went through the first two and a half laps at the same speed as the four competitors: either losing or gaining a couple of seconds from them.

However, after the cutoff of 11.5 km, the Finn turned on the cruising speed and managed to make a 13-second lead from Porom in 2.2 km, and at the finish he increased the advantage to 18.

Bolshunov knew all this very well.

The leader of the national team went to the start third from the end.

He, like Niskanen, decided not to rush and went at a comfortable speed for himself, settling in the top five.

It was not without trouble: even on the first lap, he broke the stick.

But it didn't affect the timing.

Everything was decided again by the last kilometers.

Unfortunately, unlike the Finn, the Russian could not make a breakthrough, and at the finish line he lost to the Swede with Chervotkin, remaining below the line of winners.

However, it was too early to congratulate Aleksey on the bronze, because the last starting number went to Klebo on Sunday.

The Norwegian, who won the bronze medal of the Beijing Olympics in this type of program, once again showed that he wants to be the king not only in the sprint, but also in other races.

Johannes confidently spent two-thirds of the distance.

On the third lap, he left with an advantage over Niskanen of 7.5 seconds, but it melted, like the rest, in the last 3 km.

As a result, Klebo selflessly fought with Porom for silver and beat the Swede by only 0.4 seconds.

Chervotkin eventually became the fourth, Bolshunov - the fifth.

Despite the lack of medals, the coach of the Russian national cross-country skiing team Yuri Borodavko was pleased with the results of his wards.

As noted by the specialist, they practically did not train for the last week.

“Good race, high competition, tight results.

Everything is fine, ”the coach added.