The women's marathon at the Russian Championships in Uvat was the last race of the biathlon season. On the eve of the men noted the complexity of the route due to the plus temperature. According to Nikita Porshnev, a kilometer could be counted as two. On Wednesday, however, the sun was shining and there was no wind. The girls were less fortunate: on Thursday it snowed with rain, and the flags at the shooting range did not find a place.
In such conditions, only 19 athletes decided to try their hand, so the organizers reduced the distance from 30 to 27 kilometers. The leader of the RBU rating, Victoria Slivko, also came to the start. She fought for the first place in it with Ekaterina Noskova, who was only a few points behind her opponent. However, the native of the Sverdlovsk region preferred to go to the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug for the Ugra Marathon, so it was not possible to create additional intrigue in the race.
For the first half of the distance, the girls tried to stay in a large group. Three-time champion of Russia Natalia Shevchenko again attracted attention. The former skier covered 14 of the first 15 targets, and twice went to the track as a leader. However, by the third shooting, she looked tired and because of this, she could not concentrate. As a result, three misses.
Slivko, Irina Kazakevich, Anastasia Egorova and Natalia Gerbulova also claimed medals, but the latter gradually began to lag behind, not keeping up with the pace of her rivals. And it was not possible to catch up on the borders because of mistakes.
A lot was decided after the first stand. Slivko and Yegorov smeared the shot, but at the same time increased the pace and created a decent gap from the pursuers. Only Kazakevich was able to rush in pursuit of them. True, it was difficult to call Irina's move cruising with all due respect, her pace fell at each cut-off.
The girls approached the seventh shooting in the same order, but with slightly larger gaps. Slivko looked fresher at the distance and had an advantage of 28 seconds over Yegorova, Kazakevich lost for more than a minute, Shevchenko - almost two.
The medals, in fact, were distributed on the third rack. Victoria, as if she had not run 20 kilometers, quickly shot, making one mistake. Egorova, instead of taking advantage of the situation, made a mistake three times and fell behind the leader by more than a minute. Irina again did not close one target and approached Anastasia, but in difficult weather conditions it was almost impossible to play 27 seconds on the track.
At the last shooting, Slivko again looked confident, although she went for an additional 75 meters, but moved very briskly, taking into account the distance already traveled. Yegorova did not just flinch, but made three more mistakes, thereby giving Kazakevich a chance to cling to second place. But Irina did not use it, going to two penalty laps, so Anastasia calmly went to the distance for silver.
At the finish, Victoria won more than two minutes against her pursuer. On the firing lines, she eventually covered 36 targets out of 40. An impressive result, taking into account the difficult weather conditions. However, the winner at the finish line criticized herself for shooting.
"There was only one miss at the control training, so I am dissatisfied with my result. At the beginning of the race, I tried to stay in a common group with the girls, and then, when I ran away to the distance alone, I felt strong, so I calmly walked along the track. Yesterday I saw the Cup that Nikita Porshnev received at the awarding ceremony, and I also wanted one. Fortunately, it was possible to conquer it. Anton Babikov also helped. I consulted with him on how to eat and go through the last part of the distance," Slivko said in an interview with Match TV.
Yegorova, who won the marathon last year, admitted that this time the race was much more difficult for her, and the problems on the rack (8 out of 11 mistakes were made on it) explained the problems during the manufacture.
"Before that, the marathon was held in the middle of winter, so now the weather conditions are harder. Although I thought the track would be worse. Thanks to the organizers, they managed to prepare it well. Unfortunately, I could not cope with the shooting and missed the victory. The second installation was a little crooked: the left leg was higher than the right, it prevented the aim, "the biathlete explained.
Kazakevich spent the most effort in the marathon. As the athlete joked after the finish, she wanted only one thing: to lie down somewhere and not get up for a couple of hours.
"I was very tired. I didn't think it would be so hard. I hadn't been so cut off at a distance before. In the last laps, there was only one desire - just to reach the end. It became quite difficult when I found myself on the track alone. If you go with girls, you try to work at their pace, force yourself. And then there was a gap, and I couldn't cope. On the last firing line there was a chance for silver, but a slight breeze blew, and I made mistakes, "said Kazakevich.