The first stage of the World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden, opened with the classic biathlon discipline - individual races. Their winners were Russian Irina Malgina and Norwegian Ole Einar Bjoerndalen
33-year-old Irina Malgina from Khanty-Mansiysk grabbed her victory at a distance of 15 km with two firing lines in the last kilometers. After she made two misses in the shooting, she had no choice but to try to play them back. Malgina, and so decently went along the entire race, and on the last kilometers made the last spurt, eliminating the last seven seconds behind Lag Liv Chester Ekeland from Norway. Zina Kocher from Canada finished third. A sensational outcome of the race, because for all three athletes this is the first success in the international arena.
Until that day, Irina Malgina, because of the high competition in the national team, only occasionally participated in the World Cup races. But this time, the absence of leading athletes in the Russian national team who wished to miss the post-Olympic season opened the way for her not only in the team, but also on the podium. Prior to starting in Ostersund, Malgina’s highest achievement was fifth in the 2001–2002 pursuit.
At the start of today's sprint, Irina will be released in the yellow jersey of the World Cup leader. “This is an incredible success for me,” the biathlete told the “Gazeta” correspondent. “Before, I lacked self-confidence. Now I have it and I want to win the next race.”
On the whole, the Russian women's team, consisting almost entirely of young people, showed their best side: on the first 15 lines of the protocol, three more names of the Russians are registered - Ekaterina Yuryeva, Anna Bulygina and Anastasia Shipulina.
Significantly worse results for men. The best among them, Ivan Cherezov, who correctly shot, but moved too slowly, is the sixth. But again, the phenomenal Norwegian Ole Einar Bjoerndalen was struck. The winner of the World Cup remained true to himself. Its speed is simply phenomenal. He spent two minutes less than a second medalist - German Andreas Birnbacher! And in the last segment of the distance, the Norwegian received information that he had to play 18 seconds to win. And he did it in less than two kilometers!
By the way, this is the second victory of the Olympic champion of the season. The fact is that Bjoerndalen opened the season 12 days ago by participating in the ski World Cup. And at a distance of 15 kilometers in free style, he also could not find equal.
Tatyana Milevskaya