While the leaders were wrong: Khalili and Egorova won individual races in the Russian Cup final

Egorova's speed

The biathlon season is slowly coming to an end.

All that remains for domestic athletes is to compete in the finals of the Russian Cup in Ufa, and then the national championship and the last stage of the Commonwealth Cup will take place.

Competitions in Bashkiria began with individual races.

Moreover, the organizers decided to shorten them because of the Universiade, which is being held at the sports complex on the same days.

Therefore, girls had to run only 12.5 km, and men - 15 km.

At the same time, the penalty for a miss was also reduced from a minute to 45 seconds.

In women's competition, Tamara Derbusheva again missed the competition.

As her coach Mikhail Shashilov explained, the athlete caught a cold at the Spartakiad and still has not reached optimal condition.

“Tamara has problems, she doesn’t start, we decided not to pull.

She got sick at the Spartakiad, but goes to training.

I think we’ll see it in the sprint,” Shashilov said on Match TV.

But even in Derbusheva’s absence, the fight for medals was serious.

After prone, out of the first 20 starters, only one athlete, Irina Kazakevich, earned a penalty time.

At the standing stage, the number of biathletes in the leading group who shot clean was reduced to five.

Three Anastasias were accurate - Egorova, Shevchenko and Goreeva, as well as Polina Shevnina and Svetlana Mironova, who this season before Ufa competed only at one stage of the Russian Cup - in January in Izhevsk. 

The third entry into the stadium for each of the medal contenders did not change the balance of power.

The five again took turns working at the shooting range without mistakes.

At the same time, all the girls were located within 42 seconds, so the final stand had to decide a lot.

Shevnina’s nerves couldn’t stand it: two misses dropped Polina to tenth place.

The remaining four missed once and allowed Natalya Gerbulova to return to the number of leaders.

Egorova looked a little better than the rest.

She took the lead after the second shooting with a slight advantage over Goreeva.

Surprisingly, the opponent, who entered the distance after her namesake, was unable to close this small gap.

Moreover, according to the biathlete, she gave it her 100%.

“I tried to relax normally, but I didn’t like the skis a little, the girls were pushing me.

Perhaps this is why it was not possible to win back, because the condition is more or less good.

I was surprised that I couldn’t play a single second.

The coaches didn’t say anything at all, just that I was following the leaders well.

Until the finishing lap they didn’t tell me what kind of person I was and what the gap was,” Goreeva said.

I didn’t expect such agility on the ski track from myself and Egorov.

According to the athlete, the race was difficult for her.

“I didn’t think the speed would be so high.

Missing the last shot was probably my mistake, I was in a hurry.

I didn’t follow Goreeva, I tried to work for myself.

I wouldn't say this is my best race.

I was second at the Commonwealth Cup,” said Anastasia.

As a result, Egorova managed to defend first place, and Goreeva became second.

Her gap at the finish grew to 10.3 seconds.

Natalia Shevchenko won bronze.

The former skier made two mistakes on the shooting range, but showed good speed on the last lap, winning more than 17 seconds from the winner and ahead of Gerbulova and Mironova in the standings.

Anastasia Shevchenko came only seventh, having also let Kristina Reztsova go ahead, who failed to hit three targets.

Victoria Slivko performed unexpectedly unsuccessfully this time.

The athlete also made three mistakes and finished ninth.

“Small Crystal Globe” in this type of program went to Goreeva.

Slivko was also congratulated at the award ceremony.

Victoria won the Russian Cup classification in mass starts: this event will not be held in Ufa.

A series of misses

The break after the Spartakiad clearly did not benefit the men, who demonstrated disastrous shooting in the individual race in Ufa.

Not a single athlete managed to hit all the targets.

And the winner was Karim Khalili.

Although it was hard to believe at the beginning of the race, since the athlete, who went into the distance in 14th place, earned a one and a half minute penalty due to two errors at the first stand.

He showed a result higher than the biathletes running in front of him.

But the main contenders for medals started later.

Among the participants in the race, by the way, there were no Daniil Serokhvostov and Maxim Tsvetkov, as well as representatives of the Belarusian national team.

However, all the leaders also began to fail at the shooting range.

Eduard Latypov and Alexander Povarnitsyn ended up missing six targets each.

As a Tyumen representative explained, the errors appeared due to the sun coming out.

“Because there is wind, there is a difference in pressure.

You don’t always start to notice emissions to the right.

As for me, lying down, I oriented myself towards the wind, these are more my personal mistakes, I made childhood mistakes.

There is no wind here, but at the line there is wind and it is quite dense and blows away the bullet well.

It’s very noticeable on the counter,” Povarnitsyn said.

As for the rest, Alexander Loginov missed seven times, Pyotr Pashchenko - five, Anton Babikov - three, and Vasily Tomshin only managed to repeat Khalili’s result: with two misses he remained fifth.

In the end, Ilnaz Mukhamedzyanov took second place.

The representative of Udmurtia earned three penalties in the first two shooting ranges, but thanks to clean shooting in the second half of the race he significantly moved forward, and on the last lap he almost repeated Shevchenko’s feat.

He left the range 23.3 seconds behind Khalili and was able to win 15 of them back.

“It’s hard at the stadium, the sun is very hot here, but on the track it was easier.

This weather relaxes and gives additional positive emotions.

I’m dissatisfied with the first two stages, but I’m happy with the ending, the skis worked well, thanks to the service,” said Mukhamedzyanov.

The bronze medal went to Dmitry Ivanov, who missed two targets.

The more accurate Mikhail Burundukov, who turned out to be the only biathlete in the top 5 with one miss, could not overtake him.

Khalili won his second victory this season, not counting the MLCB Cup.

At the Spartakiad he excelled in the mass start.

“During the race, I didn’t quite count on winning, because according to Serokhvostov’s scale, readiness was 20%, according to Loginov’s scale, I had not held a rifle for a very long time.

The condition did not seem to be the best, the wind conditions were difficult, the opponents made a lot of mistakes, and thanks to this they managed to win.

Mukhamedzyanov always runs the finishing lap well, but I understood that I also completed this lap well, so I thought that everything would be on the thin side,” admitted Khalili.

The “Small Crystal Globe” in the individual races for men still went to Mukhamedzyanov, and the Russian Cup classification in the mass start was won by Babikov.