The country's best skiers returned to competition after almost a month's break. Many coaching groups spent this period at training camps in the mountains, preparing for the Spartakiad, which starts on February 9 at the famous Pearl of Siberia stadium in Tyumen. The sixth stage of the Russian Cup is also taking place there, within which the leaders have the opportunity to test their readiness for the main start of the season.
On Saturday, sprint races took place in the classic style. The best result in women's qualifying was shown by the leader of the sprint standings, Anastasia Faleeva; Olga Sergeeva and Alisa Zhambalova also made it into the top three. Olympic champion in the relay Veronika Stepanova was quite far from the leader - in tenth place, but she passed the first round of the main competition quite calmly, although she ended up in the same race with Faleeva.
But the friends in Yegor Sorin’s coaching group did not start a showdown with each other, and, breaking away from their pursuers, they reached the finish line quite calmly. The only competitor who was able to stay behind the leaders was Diana Soboleva. In the final meters, she even tried to run from behind Stepanova, who was second, but still lost 0.34 seconds to her.
There were some disappointing falls at the quarterfinal stage. So, Lidiya Gorbunova was in the lead in the second race until the final climb, but on the run out to the stadium she was overtaken and “boxed” by Daria Nepryaeva and Ekaterina Evtyagina. In a contact fight, the Olympic champion's sister hit Lydia's ski with a stick, and she lost her balance and fell. As a result, the athlete from Tatarstan took only fifth place and finished the fight, and first place went to Evtyagina.
The third quarterfinal was the fastest, in which Alena Baranova won by a large margin. Yulia Stupak and Anna Koroleva competed for second place, which gives a direct ticket to the next round. In this fight, the Belarusian skier was more successful, but the Olympic champion, as well as Ekaterina Smirnova, who finished fourth, were also able to advance as lucky losers.
The fifth quarter-final was also exciting, in which all six athletes reached the final descent neck and neck. Tatyana Sorina was the first to roll out onto the plain, but she was not enough for the finishing spurt. Alisa Zhambalova accelerated phenomenally, and Anastasia Kuleshova finished behind her. But the fourth race was almost without intrigue - Elizaveta Pantrina and Olga Sergeeva easily advanced to the next round, and the closest pursuer Anastasia Dotsenko was a full second behind.
The compositions of the semi-finals turned out to be unequal, and the first of them could well be called an early final. Stepanova and Faleeva, Nepryaeva and Baranova, and Evtyagina and Smirnova were included in it. It was extremely difficult to identify a clear outsider among them before the start, but in the end it was Smirnova, who was unable to join the fight for leadership. But the other five put on a spectacular finish, and in the end the leader of the overall Russian Cup standings, Stepanova, was left out of the competition.
For most of the distance she stayed behind Faleeva and controlled the situation, but in the final meters she let three more competitors go ahead. This did not allow her to go further even in time, despite the fact that the first race was much faster than the second. Veronica explained her failure by saying that she had chosen the wrong ski track - it was covered with dust.
“There were no skaters between runs. Yegor Sorin spoke about this to the organizers before the start, but his words were not heard. If you watch the replay, I even tripped there because the snow just started sticking to the sliding surface,” the skier said on Match TV.
In the second semi-final, Pantrina and Zhambalova won two tickets. And the decisive race went without any serious intrigue. Already by the final descent, the three leaders were determined, who were inaccessible to the rest. Faleeva was the first, followed by Pantrina, and bringing up the rear of the group was Baranova, who at first was quite far behind her rivals. However, Alena was able to speed up at the finish line, and Elizaveta did not have enough strength to resist her, so she was content with only bronze.
In the men's part of the competition, both fans and experts were in anticipation of the long-awaited meeting on the track between Sergei Ustyugov and Alexander Bolshunov. The 31-year-old skier has never competed at the Russian Cup stages this season, while his principal rival has already won 15 gold medals in a row.
Ustyugov won his quarterfinal more than confidently, and showed the absolute best time among all participants - 4 minutes 08.86 seconds. Bolshunov lost to him by almost 8 seconds. With the same courage, the Olympic champion entered the semi-final race, where he was opposed, among others,
Savely Korostelev and Sergey Ardashev, who brilliantly won their races in the previous round. Sergei rushed forward from the first meters, increased his enormous speed, but could not cope with it in the turn and fell. Moreover, in the fall he caught the fence and broke his stick, which dashed his hopes of returning to the fight. To the skier’s credit, he did not leave the race and still made it to the finish line, albeit last. Meanwhile, tickets to the finals went to Korostelev and Ardashev.
“Overall I’m happy with the race, everything went great, I’m in a great mood. With each race, even though there were only three, it became easier and easier. This means that the work we did with Alexey Vyacheslavovich Ermilov was not in vain. Hip-hip-hurray! I'm kind of on the move. Honestly, openly and without any exaggeration, I’m satisfied,” Ustyugov shared in his Telegram channel.
In the second semi-final, Chervotkin and Bolshunov put on a great show. Alexey was in the lead for most of the distance, but at the finish Alexander overtook his training group comrade and passed without any problems. Chervotkin almost lost second place, as Ilya Semikov tried to run out from behind, but still resisted. However, this was not so important, since both lucky losers reached the finals from this race: Andrei Krasnov accompanied Semikov. Konstantin Tiunov was unable to go further, his pole broke while climbing, and although he was quickly given a new one, the athlete was unable to return to the fight.
In the final, Korostelev tried to pull off Chervotkin’s trick and lead the entire distance, which the young skier almost succeeded in doing. He held on first, at some point even with a solid gap from the three-time Olympic champion, but still this is not enough to defeat Alexander.
“Being on the descent first is a losing position, but perhaps Saveliy is more comfortable this way, and in this way he can guarantee himself silver,” commented the performance of his partner in the coaching group Veronika Stepanova.
At the same time, Bolshunov did not try to chase his opponent, but calmly rolled on the final descent, then accelerated to the finish line and won with a margin of 0.83 seconds. And Korostelev, contrary to Stepanova’s forecasts, almost missed out on second place, crossing the ribbon at the same time as Ardashev. The judges had to resort to a photo finish, which revealed a tiny advantage (0.02 seconds) of Savely over Sergei.
For Bolshunov, this victory was already 16 in a row in the National Cup. According to the skier, he is completely satisfied with how the first start after the break went. The only thing the three-time Olympic champion in Tyumen lacked was fans in the stands, and this can be taken as a wish to the organizers on the eve of the Spartakiad.
“I wish there were more fans. Many stadiums allow them on the tracks, and it seems to me that this can also be practiced here. Because it is more spectacular and more interesting when they are close to the athletes. Anyway, here the stands are far away, but there are stadiums where you can give out “fives” after the final,” Bolshunov noted on Match TV.