Olympic mood

Ishmuratova won personal gold for the first time

Svetlana Ishmuratova’s first career victory, won in the personal discipline, ended the first day of the third stage of the World Cup on the track near the Slovak town of Osrbli. In the 15 km individual race, the 33-year-old athlete from Chelyabinsk made only one penalty penalty on four shooting lines and was ahead of her Russian teammate Albina Akhatova, who finished second, by 62 seconds. Frenchwoman Florence Baverel-Robert climbed to the bottom step of the podium. In a similar men's race that took place early in the morning, but with a distance of 5 km longer, 23-year-old Ufa resident Maxim Chudov, who shot flawlessly, made it into the top three for the first time, becoming second and losing 1 minute. 15 sec. veteran of the German national team Sven Fischer.

Far from being the most spectacular individual races are held quite rarely. This season, as in the past, only three starts are planned for the elite. Two of them, which took place at the World Cup stages, are already behind us; the race in the program of the Winter Olympic Games on the track in San Sicario remains ahead. And although February 11 is still far away, the results shown by the Russians in Slovakia allow us to hope that in Italy our biathletes will not be left without medals either.

Ishmuratova is considered an indispensable team fighter; she performs very consistently in relay races, which she confirmed twice this season. However, Sveta was fatally unlucky for a long time in personal disciplines. She made it into the top three for the first time in 1997. This happened in Kontiolahti (Finland), where Ishmuratova won bronze in the sprint, and the next day she also achieved silver in the pursuit. Since then, the Chelyabinsk biathlete became second 12 times, third eight times, and took fourth place in another 11 races, but until yesterday she had never been first.

Let us remember that an individual triumph could have come to Svetlana a few days earlier in the Austrian Hochfilzen. Having set off for the sprint distance in 35th place, the Russian woman finished with the best time and had to wait until the rest of the participants had run. Time passed, but no one could beat the time shown; someone had already begun to congratulate Ishmuratova, but, as always, it was not to be. German Kati Wilhelm, who finished 84th in the distance, raced along the track in one breath and deprived our athlete of the long-awaited “gold”.

This time, the wait for Ishmuratova in the finishing town was even more agonizing, because she started sixth. The winner ran at a decent speed (she had the seventh best time in terms of running time), and most importantly, she did not falter in shooting - the only misfire occurred in the “stand” at the last, fourth stage. According to the timing after the second shooting, Olga Zaitseva, running number 27, was ahead of her teammate, but three inaccuracies in the next stance took her out of the list of contenders for awards. As a result, 13th place, Olga Pyleva was ninth.

Until Thursday, the highest achievement of Maxim Chudov, who made his debut at cup competitions last season, was only 13th place. Yesterday he fully justified his nickname in the biathlon world - Russian Rocket. And if it weren’t for the brilliant performance of Fischer, who demonstrated super speed and perfect shooting, Maxim would have been the main hero of the day.

Vladimir ILYIN