The program of the Russian biathlon championship in Izhevsk was opened by the women's individual race.
Elizaveta Kaplina, who had a relapse of the disease last week after performing at the final stage of the Russian Cup in Tchaikovsky, could not come out of the leaders of the current season.
According to coach Artyom Istomin, the athlete has already begun to recover and, perhaps, will take part in the two remaining disciplines - the super pursuit and the big mass start.
It should be noted that according to the results of the race of the national championship, the owner of the Small Crystal Globe in the "individual" was also determined.
The fact is that due to the cancellation of the competition at the beginning of the season, women ran it only once, and according to the regulations, at least two results are required.
Anastasia Goreeva won the single start, followed by Anastasia Shevchenko and Victoria Slivko.
All three were top contenders for the prize.
But from the very beginning of the race, Larisa Kuklina confidently joined the fight for victory, using her main trump card this season - accurate shooting.
The ward of Yuri Kaminsky passed three firing lines without a mistake and made a single misfire with the last shot on the final standing.
It was this mistake that almost cost her the victory.
At that time, the first line after the finish was occupied by Shevchenko, who started earlier.
Although Anastasia made two misfires at the lines, she demonstrated high speed on the track, so Kuklina’s advantage over her at the exit from the fourth shooting was 22.1 seconds - and noticeably melted with each subsequent kilometer.
On the last lap, Larisa had to squeeze all the juice out of herself so as not to fall into second place.
She coped: the athletes were separated by 5.6 seconds, insignificant by the standards of the individual race.
No less dramatic was the fight for the silver of Natalia Gerbulova.
A native of Perm started last and had the opportunity to focus on the results of her rivals.
She, like Shevchenko, missed twice at the shooting range, and left the last frontier 9.1 seconds behind Anastasia.
Driven by the coaches, Natalia demonstrated the third time among all the participants on the last lap, losing only Kazakevich and Goreeva in this component.
But in order to get around Shevchenko, she lacked only 2.4 seconds.
After the finish, Gerbulova complained about the miss with the last shot, noting that it was he who decided the outcome of the race for her.
Kuklina was also dissatisfied with the shooting.
“I was very upset that I missed the last shot, the mistake was stupid, ridiculous.
In principle, I'm happy with the race, I'm a little cold again, my muscles are all tied up.
But, thank God, she did it, ”said the athlete on Match TV.
Shevchenko, who, thanks to the second place, guaranteed herself the Small Crystal Globe in the standings of individual races, on the contrary, praised herself for her performance.
At the finish line, she even burst into tears, unable to cope with the influx of emotions.
The biathlete said that she had been ill on the eve of the National Cup stage in Chaikovsky, and now she is very happy to show a good result just five days after recovery.
She also admitted that the victory in the standings of "individuals" is of great importance to her.
“I want to prove to myself and others that I can.
I am a really strong athlete and I can make up the fight in Russia, ”said Anastasia.
In the men's race, the fans expected a lot from Eduard Latypov, who won the sprint and pursuit in the Russian Cup final last week in great style.
The three-time bronze medalist started the reporting race perfectly: he demonstrated the best run-up among 76 participants and maintained his lead until the second shooting.
However, two misses on the stand threw him far back, and then the same number of misfires on the second prone completely crossed out the hopes of getting into the number of winners.
Shooting did not go well with the owner of the Big Crystal Globe Cup of Russia Karim Khalili, moreover, on the benches.
On the first one he missed twice, on the second one he hit the “milk” again.
After the race, the athlete explained the misfires by the fact that he had poor orientation in the wind and did not make an amendment in time.
Karim tried to correct his mistakes with his feet and win back penalty minutes on the track.
He coped with this task quite successfully - at the finish line he lost only 1.3 seconds to Belarusian Anton Smolsky, who took third place, who made one mistake less.
And the main hero of the race was Kirill Bazhin, who, although he did not shine with speed, coped with the shooting flawlessly.
As he admitted later, for the first time in his career he shot without a single miss in the "individual" and only for the third time in general.
“I often made three zeros in individual races, and made mistakes at the last frontier.
But now, in psychology, there was no time for shooting.
I was more worried about the skis.
Therefore, I treated a little easier, ”said the athlete.
Kirill explained that he and the team did not guess correctly with the choice of equipment for the race, so the speed along the distance left much to be desired.
“When they rolled back, there were two pairs - one colder, the other warmer.
They took it colder, but they miscalculated a little.
In the middle of the track, the skis just stood up.
The descents here are long with rollouts.
He began to lose a lot on them, ”Bazhin shared.
But with Ilnaz Mukhamedzyanov, on the contrary, the skis just flew, allowing the athlete to perform a small miracle and become a silver medalist.
He allowed himself to miss as many as three misses - one each in the first three lines - but made an incredible high-speed breakthrough on the third and fourth laps.
The ward of Kaminsky showed the best time among all participants in these segments, despite the fact that he started in the first group and did not have sufficient guidelines in front of him in terms of the time to complete the distance.
Ilnaz did not slow down even after the final firing line, which went without misfires, and eventually lost to Bazhin in less than a minute.
“I’m at home here, I know every corner, every branch on this highway.
Thanks to this, we managed to spread well over the distance and show a high result.
But I didn’t have time to get acquainted with the wind in advance, so I couldn’t cope with it a bit, ”the Izhevsk athlete said with a smile after the finish.