Gold of Burov and Nikitina
One of the most striking events of the fifth day of the Spartakiad was the freestyle acrobatics competition. In the women's part of the competition on the Krasnoyarsk Sopka, two world-class stars came together - 2021 world champion Lyubov Nikitina and PyeongChang Olympic champion, Beijing silver medalist Anna Guskova from Belarus.
In qualifying, the Russian showed the best result, but in the first final she was unable to perform the jump without mistakes and took only fifth place. However, the Belarusian’s attempt was completely unsuccessful: she fell on her back upon landing and did not make it into the six super finalists at all. At the decisive stage, Nikitina was almost flawless and received a high 139.54 points from the judges. Second and third places were taken by two Belarusian guests - Anna Derugo and Anastasia Andriyanova.
In the men's draw of the tournament, three-time world champion Maxim Burov did not let anyone doubt his victory for a second. He showed the best results in both qualifying and both finals. In the final attempt, he performed the most difficult jump of all participants, including a triple somersault and five pirouettes.
And although the landing was not perfect, he confidently outperformed his competitors. Even his older brother Ilya, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist (2018, 2022), who was content with silver, could not resist the two-time World Cup winner. Belarusian Makar Mitrofanov won the bronze award.
Double of Semenov and Tararychenkova
Skeleton athletes demonstrated an exciting fight to the audience. Before the start of the competition, experts named the main favorite of the 2022 World Youth Champion Evgeniy Rukosuev, who was purposefully preparing for the Spartakiad this season. However, the sympathies of long-time fans of this sport were probably on the side of Sochi Olympic champion Alexander Tretyakov, especially since these days the country is widely celebrating the tenth anniversary of the home Olympics.
But quite unexpectedly, Vladislav Semenov took the lead, securing an advantage of 0.22 seconds before the decisive race. After the third attempt, Tretyakov, who achieved the highest speed among all participants (135.542 km/h), took second place, pushing Rukosuev to third place. In the final race, the triumphant Sochi showed the best time, but Semenov had enough safety margin to retain the first position. Rukosuev was content with bronze.
“Today I did everything I could, I objectively evaluate my result. Completed all four attempts consistently. Of course, I was in the mood for victory and wanted to win a very important Russian start. But in the fight against very worthy opponents I took silver, which I consider a worthy result,” Tretyakov commented on the performance.
And Semyonov confirmed the next day that his victory was not at all accidental. In the mixed race, he paired with Alina Tararychenkova won the second gold. Moreover, his partner, although she had also previously won the personal race, showed only the fourth result in her heat, but Vladislav pulled the team into first place.
Tretyakov was at his best in this type of program, showing the second result of the day after Semenov. But his efforts were not enough to bring the duet with Daria Tkacheva into the top three. As a result, Polina Tyurina and Dmitry Knysh took silver, and Anastasia Tsyganova and Daniil Romanov took bronze.
Kulizhnikov’s first victory and Aldoshkina’s failure
Speed skating competitions started at the Spartakiad on Wednesday. The first champion of the tournament at the Chelyabinsk Ural Lightning skating rink was Daria Kachanova, who won the 500 m distance. She was 0.36 seconds ahead of the former world champion and bronze medalist of the 2022 Games, Angelina Golikova. Elizaveta Agafoshina took third place, and Sochi 2014 silver medalist Olga Fatkulina was one step away from the podium.
At a similar distance for men, Pavel Kulizhnikov and Ruslan Murashov demonstrated a stubborn fight, who met in the final race. The start remained with the 2019 world champion, but at the finish the world record holder for this distance took the lead and took the gold of the competition. As Pavel admitted later, it was hard for him to be removed from international tournaments, which is why he didn’t get a great performance, despite the active support of the public and a very warm atmosphere.
“It’s very difficult to run among your own people; there’s no motivation to run for literacy. Trying to show any result, training is very difficult, as in any sport,” TASS quotes Kulizhnikov.
Ekaterina Aldoshkina, who had previously won three golds in short track speed skating, was left without a medal on the first day of the competition. She did not start at the 500-meter race, and at the 3000-meter distance she showed only the fifth result. Now it will be difficult for a native of Chelyabinsk to compete with Alexander Bolshunov for the title of the most titled athlete at the Spartakiad. San Sanych already has four golds and one more race in reserve, and Veronica Stepanova currently has the most medals (three golds and two silvers).
Meanwhile, the winner of the 3000 m race was Alexandra Sayutina, the daughter of Lillehammer Olympic champion at the same distance Svetlana Bazhanova and world championship medalist and now coach Vadim Sayutin. It is symbolic that the athlete received the gold medal at the award ceremony from the hands of her mother.
“It's nice to be back in my hometown. Chelyabinsk is the Mecca of speed skating in Russia. I’m glad to see that the city lives in sports and holds such great competitions. I’m very happy for my daughter too. She worked hard on herself and worked hard to win this gold medal at the Spartakiad,” said the former athlete.