Mass start sensation
The competition program of the Spartakiad of the Strongest in Biathlon on Sunday ended with the men's relay and women's mass start. Tamara Derbusheva, for whom her performances in Zlatoust were unsuccessful, did not reach the distance for the girls. The athlete managed to climb onto the podium only in the team: she ran the first stage for the Sverdlovsk region. And in other races she was in the top 10 only once.
22-year-old Julia Sheller created a sensation in the mass start. The young athlete won two awards as part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory team. However, in individual competitions she has so far only reached the top 10. The closest she came to a medal was in the sprint. Having covered all the targets, the biathlete took fourth place. The athlete acted flawlessly this time too.
However, for the first half of the race, the representative of the Krasnoyarsk Territory kept in the shadow of her more eminent and experienced colleagues. After two firing lines, she was 16.1 seconds behind the leader. In front were Anastasia Goreeva, Irina Kazakevich, Anastasia Batmanova and Ekaterina Noskova, who also shot cleanly at the ranges.
However, the girls got carried away with the fight among themselves at the distance and made one mistake each on the stand, which allowed Sheller to be the first to leave the stadium. Although her advantage over the group of pursuers was very small (14.9 seconds), only Goreeva was able to catch up with the young biathlete on the track. The rivals came to the last shooting together.
However, Julia was not at all embarrassed by such company. She quickly covered all the targets and went for the last lap. Anastasia missed with the fourth round and then took a very long time to aim with the fifth.
“Unfortunately, at the last turn I had a misfire, the cartridge flew out - this knocked me out a little, I made a mistake,” the athlete explained the hitch.
As a result, Goreeva was ahead of Shevchenko by a second at the exit from the shooting range, who also made one mistake, and the duo’s gap from the leader was already 46.4 seconds.
The rest of the athletes were even further away: Kazakevich missed two more times in the standing position, ran through the second penalty loop and Noskova. At the same time, it should be noted that Ekaterina, who last year successfully competed at the Russian cross-country skiing championship, was clearly not in the best physical shape in Zlatoust. In the mass start, she lost more than a minute to both Goreeva and Shevchenko.
The duo tried to chase Sheller, but the young athlete managed to maintain her advantage and calmly finished with the flag of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. And the silver medal in the competition went to Natalia, who ran away from Anastasia.
As Yulia admitted at the end of the race, she was very afraid that her rivals would overtake her on the last lap.
“I feel joy. In such difficult weather and frost, we managed to cope with the shooting and not give up the victory on the final lap. I am very happy to beat such biathlon sharks. It's very cool here! When we ran in Raubichi, spectators stood along the track - this encouraged us. They’re standing here too - it’s a thrill to run like this! Yesterday the coaches told me: “So, Yulia,
you have bronze and silver (in the mixed and classical relays -
RT
) - you need gold!” - Sheller quotes “Championship”.
The battle of nerves in the men's relay race
14 teams took part in the men's relay, including the Belarusian national team. There were no serious surprises in the lineups, but at the first stage Alexander Bektuganov, representing the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, surprised. He worked “to zero” on both firing lines and left his last lap with an advantage of 13.0 seconds over Ilnaz Mukhamedzyanov.
However, the representative of Udmurtia with two additional rounds looked much stronger than his opponent. He not only caught up with the leader, but also managed to create a small gap for Sergei Temkin, who competed in the second stage.
“I set myself the task of completing the stage well. And winning back time is secondary. The guys shot well. I was a little behind in this regard. Therefore, I had to catch up,” the athlete admitted at the finish line.
Temkin decided not to force events and did not try to escape from his pursuers. Four biathletes rolled out to the firing line at the same time, which, in addition to Sergei, included Alexander Povarnitsyn, Alexey Vagin and Viktor Plitsev. Only the latter was not able to immediately close all the targets, using an additional cartridge, but he did it very quickly. So the athletes went together for the second round.
At the distance, Temkin could not withstand the speed of his opponents, and this was the end of Udmurtia’s fight for medals. The team eventually finished tenth. And on the stand Plitsev turned out to be more accurate. He immediately closed all the targets with five rounds and went onto the track with a slight advantage over Povarnitsyn and Vagin, who missed once and twice, respectively. On the track they were unable to get closer to the leader. Victor passed the baton to Dmitry Abashev with a handicap of 12.0 seconds over his pursuers.
The representative of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, like Temkin before, was unable to maintain this lead. At the stadium he was overtaken by Pyotr Pashchenko and Alexander Loginov, but the chase affected the shooting. The representative of KhMAO-Yugra went to the penalty loop. And the world champion completed the task with the first additional cartridge, but did not notice this and began to reload the rifle.
“The gate was closed for a very long time. When you take out additional cartridges, you don’t pay attention to it. I open my eye, and at that moment I hear a whistle and see: the clearance has closed. I unloaded and ran,” said the biathlete.
However, this hitch allowed Abashev to retain first place with the same small margin of 12.7 seconds. However, already at the counter the arrangement changed. Both leaders used up all the extra ammo. But Loginov’s nerves turned out to be stronger: he went to the track, while Dmitry went to the penalty loop. Now he found himself in the role of catching up with a lag of 29.3 seconds.
The confusion of the leaders allowed the Sverdlovsk region to break into the fight for medals. Andrey Ostapiy, who was in the third stage, went onto the track a couple of seconds behind Abashev. Evgeny Smirnov from St. Petersburg also joined in.
Alas, Vyacheslav Maleev could not support Loginov’s agility. On prone, he earned a penalty loop and deprived the Tyumen region of awards. But Rustam Kayumov, who replaced Abashev, was accurate and was the first to leave the stadium. Kirill Bazhin set off in pursuit of him, using one additional cartridge, and took over the baton from Ostapia.
Ilya Sannikov from Moscow unexpectedly found himself in the top three, and Anton Smolsky was 42.5 seconds behind the leader. The Belarusians had an unsuccessful first part of the race, entering a penalty loop, but the Beijing Olympics medalist managed to significantly reduce the gap from the leaders at the start of his stage.
On the stand, Kayumov and Bazhin again could not do without mistakes, but Ruslan was a little more accurate. Kirill took a very long time to aim with the last additional cartridge and allowed his opponent to escape by 13.9 seconds. The biathlete was never able to reduce this handicap on the ski track. the team of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug took gold, and the Sverdlovsk region took silver.
“When I started, I kept thinking about lying down, because I can’t do it here at all. And then I drive up to the mat and see that people are starting to miss, and I close out of five. Of course, this is an additional surge of strength; I wasn’t so worried about the standing position,” Kayumov admitted after the finish.
Young Sannikov performed the stance cleanly and again went into the distance third, but was unable to retain bronze for Moscow. Smolsky followed him with a slight lag, and also immediately closed all the targets. On the ski track, Anton quickly overtook his opponent and took bronze. And Ilya also let Eduard Latypov and Mikhail Burundukov go ahead.