Gerbulova's golden double, Babikov's shooting and Latypov's problems: how was the second stage of the Commonwealth Biathlon Cup

First Beh competition

In Raubichi, the second stage of the Commonwealth Cup in biathlon on roller skis has ended.

Far from all the leaders of the Russian national team took part in it.

Many people in the national team are sick.

Only recently Kristina Reztsova coped with the virus and is now holding a training camp in Sochi.

Svetlana Mironova continues to recover.

They flew to Belarus, but Daniil Serokhvostov and Ksenia Dovgaya did not compete, who also did not train for a long time due to health problems.

As the coach Artyom Istomin explained, they came along with everyone so that the specialists could see how the athletes work live.

“While there is an opportunity, it is necessary to discuss issues in person.

Moreover, there is an opportunity to skate, ”Match TV quotes Istomin as saying.

At the same time, Serokhvostov, most likely, will not perform at the Russian summer championship in Tchaikovsky, since he did not train for about a month and a half, and is also currently undergoing a course of antibiotics.

Due to illness, Alexander Loginov missed the tournament in Raubichi.

According to the biathlete, he has just started training and is not yet ready to compete.

“So far I don’t have to think about competitive practice, but nevertheless I’m coming to my senses and purposefully preparing for the winter.

Now I have volume workouts, almost without a high heart rate.

So far this is all I can do.

The atmosphere in the group is working and friendly.

All the guys are in good condition, ”said the athlete.

At the same time, the girls in the Russian national team had a new competitor - Ekaterina Bekh.

The athlete previously represented Ukraine.

However, after the start of the SVO, the biathlete was expelled from the national team.

Now he represents the Moscow region.

True, while she does not have a Russian passport, but the RRF went to meet her halfway and allowed her to compete.

“There was jitters before the start, appeared a couple of days later.

I haven’t run a race since January, there were no control starts, ”Beh admitted.

Golden double of Gerbulova

In the absence of a number of athletes at the stage in Belarus in the women's part of the competition, Natalia Gerbulova took the lead.

She won the sprint and the pursuit.

A native of Krasnoyarsk lost three kilograms in the off-season, and it looks like it paid off.

In addition, according to the biathlete, she now approaches training more consciously.

“I started to fully understand the whole process.

I began to take a more responsible approach to each lesson, recovery.

To everything that happens to me in sports, ”explained Gerbulova in an interview with the SBR.

During the first start, the athlete made one miss on the standing and overtook the closest pursuer Ekaterina Noskova by 29.7 seconds.

And the Olympic champion Dinara Alimbekova did not get into the prizes at all, lagging behind the winner by 52.3 seconds.

However, the leader of the Belarusian national team is also just getting in shape after an illness.

In the pursuit race, Gerbulova did not look so confident in the shooting.

She made a mistake five times.

However, other girls also missed a lot: Irina Kazakevich had seven open targets, Noskova had five, Larisa Kuklina had four.

Therefore, in the end, no one was able to catch up with Natalya, who had run ahead.

“On the last lap they said that the gap was big and I slowed down.

First of all, you need to work with yourself and strive to move forward.

I am very ashamed that I missed so much ... The wind was very strong, ”admitted Gerbulova.

Was dissatisfied with the girls and the head of the SBR Viktor Maygurov.

In his opinion, high results cannot be achieved at international competitions with such shooting.

“Five misses is a lot, I noted for myself that with such shooting at the World Cup you won’t get into the top thirty.

Maybe the athletes are relaxed, but they have to show their class to the rest.

With these words, we will motivate them so that they do not relax.

In reality, today's result is not the level of elite athletes,” Maigurov said.

In the mass start, the struggle finally unfolded.

Gerbulova competed with Alimbekova.

She made just one miss on the shooting range and was able to run away from the Russian woman by 7.8 seconds.

At the same time, Natalia made one penalty loop more.

Until he can get into the form of Kuklin.

The athlete even thinks to miss the next start in Tchaikovsky.

“We have not yet decided 100% what will be the next steps.

The coaches still see that it will be better if I miss the Russian Championship, since my entire mitochondrial system is completely destroyed, after an illness it takes a long time to restore it.

Plus, I lost a lot in power, strength, ”explained Larisa.

They were waiting for the appearance of Natalia Shevchenko in the mass start, who had switched from cross-country skiing.

The coach of the athlete Mikhail Shashilov wanted to let her go to the start already in Raubichi, but in the end he postponed the debut for the Russian Championship.

As the girl admits, she still has problems with shooting.

“I have been in biathlon for four months.

The realization that this is my sport will come after a year, at least, when I will already run races and understand whether I like it or not.

Shooting experience?

Lying is not bad, standing, of course, is harder.

Whether I'm talented in biathlon or not, we'll find out later.

Rather, able to learn quickly, work well.

At least I try.

Everything should be gradual, I myself understand this, even though I want to try everything faster and immediately, ”Shevchenko noted.

Accuracy of Babikov and Tsvetkov

In the men's part of the competition, the races turned out to be more stubborn.

The sprint was won by Belarusian Anton Smolsky.

He worked cleanly at the shooting range and overtook Kirill Bazhin by only 1.5 seconds.

The Russian started much later than the silver medalist of the Beijing Games, but he could not take advantage of the fact that he knew the result of the opponent.

The top three was closed by Eduard Latypov, who looked good at a distance, but did not close one target on the prone.

In the pursuit race, Anton Babikov once again demonstrated to the fans who is the best shooter in the national team.

He went to the distance seventh, 54.8 seconds behind Smolsky.

However, after the first laying, he almost halved it.

The final stand was decisive.

The Belarusian made two misses and let not only his namesake, but also Bazhin forward.

Cyril was accurate on the fourth firing line, but made a mistake twice at the beginning of the race.

As Babikov noted, he knows how to shoot in bad weather, so he expected to quickly close the gap, and he succeeded.

“I know that the wind causes stress for someone, and I consider this my strength.

You need to be ready for such an approach to the shooting range, because the pulse begins to recover, it punches harder.

And when there is such a wind, there are too many sensations in the body - from the pulse and from the influence of the wind.

Therefore, experience is needed to cope with this, and somewhere - a share of luck.

I left the last frontier with thoughts that I still have strength and I can fight at the finish line, even if Anton Smolsky came out right behind us, ”the biathlete admitted.

Unfortunately, Latypov is still unable to arrange shooting.

This time he did not close six targets at once, although he was one of the best in terms of speed.

“Wow — that’s what I say to myself when I miss.

It is clear that it is unpleasant, but this is biathlon.

Today I did not cope with the weather conditions.

We need to do an analysis, see where the shots went.

This time it somehow didn't work.

Let's figure it out, there is time, ”said the athlete.

In the mass start, Eduard corrected the statistics, allowing only three misses.

However, he could not qualify for medals with such a result.

However, the biathlete's coach Yuri Kaminsky is not yet worried about Latypov's mistakes at the shooting range.

“He is now trying, looking, there is nothing to worry about.

I think that we will collect his shooting for the winter.

He tries different options for the rhythm of shooting, this is a search, ”the specialist noted.

More well-aimed biathletes fought for awards on Sunday.

Maxim Tsvetkov repeated Babikov's success the day before, hitting all 20 targets.

This allowed him to get away from his pursuers for a comfortable ten seconds on the last lap and win the race.

“Today, before the start, I posted a comic post about the pursuit, when we shot 7 penalties with Karim Khalili.

I wrote: Karim, the main thing in the mass start is not to shoot as many.

But today everything was fine with shooting... At the first line, I felt especially good, so I drove up to the leading guys, although I started from distant positions.

The physical condition allowed me to work with them,” said the bronze medalist of the Beijing Games.

And for the rest of the medals, a serious struggle unfolded.

Five biathletes left the last firing line together.

In such a company, they reached the finish line.

As a result, the owners of silver and bronze were determined using a photo finish.

Anton Smolsky was second, Roman Eremin was third, Babikov was only fifth.

He let Nikita Lobastov go ahead.