HEROES
Men's Norway team. At the December stage in Hochfilzen, the Scandinavians, speaking without Bjoerndalen, won the baton to everyone’s amazement. And they did it after numerous failures in individual races. Then inspiration found even on the chronic muff Frude Andresen, who shot without additional cartridges. In Ruhpolding, Andresen appeared on his own, unwinding two penalty circles, but at the same time he ran faster than Bjoerndalen himself. Which, incidentally, at the last stage easily won a ten-second handicap against Nikolai Kruglov. The second victory of the season makes the Norwegians (along with the Russians) almost the main favorites in the relay race at the World Championships in Antholz.
Nogrezhtsy distinguished themselves in the sprint, occupying the entire pedestal. Bjoerndalen, unlike the previous stage in Oberhof, passed the firing lines perfectly. “A week ago a strong, unpleasant wind blew. Only this can I explain my countless mistakes. In Ruhpolding, calm reigned, and the targets seemed just cyclopic in size, ”the five-time Olympic champion joked after the victory race. It is impossible not to mention the silver medalist Halvard Hanevold, who at the age of 37 runs on the track flush with Maxim Chudov, and shoots much better than the young Russian. In the mass start, the Norwegians were again invincible. Bjoerndalen broke away from his pursuers for almost a minute, making a golden hat-trick, and his compatriot, world champion among juniors Emil-Hegle Svendsen finished second.
OUR
Women's relay . The sixth place at the previous stage forced our coaches to finally stop the fussy experiments with the roster. After winning the Hochfilzen, Valery Polkhovsky tried Tatyana Moiseeva, Anna Bulygin and Yekaterina Yuryeva in the following races, but without much success. In Ruhpolding, Russian mentors returned to the optimal combination - Bogaliy-Titovets, Anisimova, Malgina, Gusev - and did not lose. Our girls celebrated their second victory of the season. But you should not deceive yourself. The main rivals - the Germans - fled without two leading athletes Martina Glagov and Andrea Henkel, and lost largely due to the slowness of Simone Denkinger.
Irina Malgina, after winning the individual race at the starting stage in Ostersund, went into the shadows and left her only in Ruhpolding. What caused such a long stagnation in the results? Unknown Irina herself was silent, the trainers were perplexed, trusting the 33-year-old athlete the third relay stage in any of her physical condition. In the last races, distance speed and high-quality shooting returned to Malgina again. In the sprint, she lost third place in less than a second, and in sixth place in the mass start.
RETURN
Rafael Poiret promised his fans to come to Ruhpolding only for the general start race. But it turned out differently: Raf ran all distances, albeit without much brilliance. In the sprint, the four-time holder of the Crystal Globe almost reached the medal, finishing after the winners. Recently, a significant event happened in his family: the second daughter Anna was born.
Curiosity
Two falls Yanchao Kon in the first stage of the relay. The best Chinese biathlete, a repeated winner of the World Cup stages, did not have a race from the very beginning. In the starting corridor, she fell, entangled in the skiing of the American Lanny Barnes, lost precious seconds and noticeably lagged behind the peloton. After the second firing, Kon rushed in pursuit of the leaders, but, walking around the Ukrainian woman on a narrow track, Valentina Semerenko, stumbled and again appeared in the snow. The fall of Kon did not affect the overall result of the Chinese team, which closed the top five. The trouble for the 24-year-old athlete in Ruhpolding did not end there. In the mass start, Cohn was again in the spotlight, organizing a blockage on the first ascent. Almost all Russian girls and the future winner of the race, the leader of the World Cup overall classification Anna Karin Olofsson, got into the “meat grinder”.
QUOTE
“Victories in the cup stages are working moments. We must not think about fame, but prepare for the World Cup. And fewer contacts with fans: one or two autographs, change clothes and leave for home. After all, when an athlete takes shape, he becomes very vulnerable from a health point of view: it’s enough for someone to sneeze nearby and the whole season could be lost, ” Vladimir Alikin , the head coach of the Russian men's team, urged the wards to go down with Sport Express heaven to earth after the high-profile victories at Oberhof.
NUMERAL
5800 cubic meters of snow have been stored since last March by the organizers of the stage in Ruhpolding. Such plushkinism was unusually sound. While all of Europe is suffering from snowlessness and heavy rains, the Bavarian authorities boast of an excellent track and record attendance. More than 23 thousand spectators came to Sunday races to cheer for biathletes.