For Russian sports, 2022 turned out to be an extremely difficult year.

At the Winter Games in Beijing, domestic athletes, who competed under a neutral flag, although they limited themselves to six gold medals, took second place in the total number of awards.

However, a few days later, a special military operation in Ukraine started, and most international federations hastened to remove the Russians from the competition.

Skiers, biathletes, athletes and other representatives of Olympic sports remained without competition at a high level, and the Russian national teams could not both compete for a ticket to the World Cup in Qatar and fight for medals at the world hockey championship in Finland.

And although the year was mostly marked by sanctions, suspensions and doping scandals, Russia found its heroes both at the Games in Beijing and at other tournaments that were more or less exempt from restrictions.

RT talks about athletes who managed to please their fans during this difficult time. 

Alexander Bolshunov

The Russian skier can be safely called one of the main characters of the Olympics.

Within the framework of one competition, Alexander Bolshunov won five medals at once, which no one had previously managed to do - neither his sworn rival Johannes Klebo, nor the legendary Petter Nortug and Bjorn Daly.

Four years earlier, an athlete from the Bryansk region took four awards.

But if then none of them was of the highest dignity, then this time there were three of them at once.

Already two days after the opening of the Games, Bolshunov excelled in the skiathlon, and then led the Russian team to triumph in the relay, which had not happened since 1980.

Together with Alexei Chervotkin, Denis Spitsov and Sergei Ustyugov, they rolled out Norway itself, ahead of the Scandinavians by more than a minute.

He was also the strongest in the ski marathon, where his compatriot Ivan Yakimushkin unexpectedly became his main opponent.

In addition to this, silver in the “cutting” for 15 km and bronze in the team sprint paired with Alexander Terentyev.

Thus, Alexander extended an incredible streak, finishing in the prizes in all nine races at the Olympics in his career.

Bolshunov literally bathed in glory.

At the closing ceremony of the 2022 Games, he appeared as a flag bearer and probably hoped to complete his performance in the World Cup on a high note, but by the end of February he had practically lost his chance to compete for the trophy.

Finally, they melted away after the decision of the FIS to remove the Russians from international tournaments.

And although this season Alexander still does not have the opportunity to compete with the strongest, he continues to please his native fans.

So, at the stages of the Cup of the country, he has already won six races and is confidently leading in the overall standings.

Dmitry Bivol

The past year was also decisive in the career of the Russian boxer.

Since 2017, Dmitry Bivol has defended the WBA light heavyweight title eight times, but has not gained superstar status, although he managed to stop several top opponents at once.

And until May, he continued to be incredibly strong and skilled, but little known to the general public, an athlete, which negatively affected his prospects.

This was especially vividly illustrated by the behavior of Artur Beterbiev's representatives, who were reluctant to discuss the idea of ​​a possible unification fight, which was dreamed of by both the rivals themselves and domestic fans.

That all changed on May 7, when Bivol took down Saul Alvarez in great style as he attempted a second time at the 79.4kg belt.

For 12 rounds, the Russian outplayed the opponent in a trademark manner and eventually won the judges over to his side, which even the former first number of the Pound-for-Pound rating Gennady Golovkin had never been able to do before.

But this time, even the members of the jury, bewitched by the magic of the Mexican, could not resist the fact that Dmitry was better.

Although they tried.

After all, in an almost one-sided fight, they gave him only one more round.

Thus, Bivol became the second after Floyd Mayweather, who managed to get the better of Alvarez.

In one night, he earned a record fee for himself and became a real boxing superstar.

However, he did not lower the requirements for himself and even before the end of the year he held the tenth anniversary defense of the trophy.

Gilberto Ramirez could not avenge his compatriot and lost even more (at least in a row), and Dmitry confirmed that he is one of the strongest boxers of our time.

Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov

Although the past season cannot be called unequivocally successful for domestic tennis players, there were enough bright moments with their participation.

Daniil Medvedev reached the final of the Australian Open for the second year in a row, where he lost to Rafael Nadal in a bitter struggle.

And already at the end of February, for the first time, he rose to the first line of the ATP rating, which in the last 18 years has not been possible for anyone except for the representatives of the Big Four.

In the rank of the strongest on the planet, he spent a total of 16 weeks, and could have been more if not for health problems.

Due to the removal of a vertebral hernia, the Russian missed the start of the dirt season and subsequently failed to gain ideal conditions.

This was confirmed by a series of five consecutive defeats in the finals of tournaments, which he managed to interrupt only in August.

But if Medvedev took quality, then Rublev - rather quantity.

In 2022, he won four titles and stopped one step away from his best achievement in his career.

Two years earlier, he took five trophies at once, thanks to which he spent some time in the status of the fifth racket of the world.

This time he did not manage to rise so high, but he almost managed to get into the final of the Final Tournament for the first time in his career.

Andrey left the group with Medvedev, Novak Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas from the second place, but lost to Kasper Ruud in the playoffs.

Not to mention Karen Khachanov.

Unlike his compatriots, in 2022 he did not submit to a single tournament, but he made a real breakthrough at the US Open.

For the first time, the Russian reached the semi-finals of the TBSh, crushing Medvedev's offender Nick Kiryos, who has recently gained excellent shape, along the way.

If successful, he could surpass the achievement of Andre Agassi and become the first US Open triumph among tennis players not included in the top 20, but the same Ruud prevented the fantastic scenario from being realized.

Islam Makhachev

For the mixed martial arts fighter, 2022 has also become a breakthrough.

True, unlike Khachanov, he was able not only to come close to winning the trophy, but also to get it.

At the UFC 280 tournament, Islam Makhachev did not leave a stone unturned from Charles Oliveira and became the third Russian champion in the history of the largest MMA promotion in the world.

Besides him, only his friend and colleague Khabib Nurmagomedov and Peter Yan succeeded in this.

The significance of Makhachev's victory is also added by the pressure under which he was on the eve of the fight.

Over the past years, Nurmagomedov himself, and many others, called him the strongest lightweight on the planet, but he was never given a chance to prove it.

Moreover, before the battle with Oliveira, he had never met top opponents, so it was extremely risky to consider him a favorite in a duel with one of the most dangerous fighters in the division.

The failure threatened to cross out all his achievements and permanently remove him from the number of contenders for the belt.

However, he managed - and in a beautiful manner.

Islam surpassed Charles in the standing position, and then cold-bloodedly strangled him on the ground.

As a result, Makhachev immediately soared to the second line of the rating, regardless of the categories, and at the end of the year he took third place in the list of the best fighters according to the UFC.

Only Alex Pereira managed to get around him, who took the middleweight title from Israel Adesanya, as well as the featherweight leader Alexander Volkanovski.

And already in February, Islam will have to fight with him for the first position in the P4P table.

Alexander Ovechkin

Like the previous one, this season is unlikely to promise anything rosy for the partners of the best Russian scorer in the history of the NHL.

The struggling Washington Capitals failed to break the first-round barrier in the 2022 Stanley Cup and are now struggling to stay in the playoff zone.

However, the captain of the "capital" does not cease to please his personal fans and continues to approach the conquest of Wayne Gretzky's record for goals, which seemed eternal a few years ago.

Ovechkin finished the last regular season with a grandmaster record of 50 goals and is not going to slow down this year - by the end of the year he has already scored 22 goals.

Thus, for a season and a half, Alexander in turn bypassed the legendary Marcel Dionne, Brett Hull, Jaromir Jagr, and in December overtook Gordie Howe, thanks to which he rose to second place in the list of the best snipers of all time.

And now he is separated from Gretzky by 92 accurate throws - a distance that Alexander may well cover by 2025 if he maintains such an amazing pace.

And so far there are no prerequisites for the Russian car to suddenly stall.

At 37, Ovechkin continues to average 0.61 goals per game, just short of his most prolific seasons in the league.

And this is truly amazing, because recently sports fans have repeatedly witnessed how age-old stars literally ceased to demonstrate their usual class at the click of a button.

In just a few months, Cristiano Ronaldo turned from a super scorer into an average football player, LeBron James ceased to be the most dominant basketball player on the planet, and Rafael Nadal shows his fantastic level episodically.

Alexander continues to be one of the best snipers in the strongest league in the world, which once again testifies to his greatness.