Translated material
Shooting at medium speed
Russians lacked skiing skills at the World Championships
The Biathlon World Championships ended yesterday in the Italian town of Anterselva. The main hero of the tournament was 19-year-old German Magdalena Neuner, who won three gold medals (sprint, pursuit, relay). Our men's team has a relay “gold” and “silver” for Maxim Chudov in pursit. The successes of the main Russian women's team, significantly updated in the off-season, are much more modest - only Natalya Guseva's bronze medal in the sprint.Over the course of six stages of the World Cup, which took place before the start of the world championship, our biathletes demonstrated very stable shooting, but directly in ski training they were either inferior to their main competitors or in no way superior to them. Of course, this does not apply to Chudov, who received the nickname Russian Rocket, to a lesser extent applies to Ivan Tcherezov, and was most characteristically manifested in the performances of the women's team. Such an imbalance in the main two components of this sport allows one to count on success in long races with many exits to the shooting range. At short distances, the final result depends primarily on the number of opponents’ misses.
In the men's relay, Chudov, Tcherezov, Dmitry Yaroshenko and Nikolai Kruglov repeated the season record set by the women's four at the victorious World Cup in Ruhpolding (Germany) - just one misfire by Chudov. For 40 targets, only one additional cartridge was used. The Russians were exactly one minute ahead of the Norwegian silver medalists.
This race began with a rare occurrence - the judges recorded a false start. Tcherezov was in no hurry to lead the peloton on the track, but after the first shooting range he was ahead. Ivan’s shooting performance this season is simply outrageous. He is the only one of the elite who has more than 90 percent accuracy of hits both from a prone position and in a stance that is problematic for many. Ivan left for the third lap with a 24-second advantage over the US representative. Halvard Hannewold and Ricco Gross were three-quarters of a minute behind - it was Norway and Germany that were considered contenders for the awards, and being in the leading group of the Stars and Stripes or the Chinese was clearly a temporary phenomenon.
Chudov retained the advantage gained by Cherezov, Yaroshenko, thanks to the traditionally weak shooting of Frode Andresen on the stand, allowed Nikolai Kruglov to go the distance with a comfortable margin of safety of one and a half minutes. Behind the Russian, a sharp duel unfolded at the last stage between Ole Einar Bjoerndalen and the hero of the Turin Olympics, Mikael Greis. The Norwegian won the battle for silver; Kruglov calmly finished with the Russian tricolor in his hands. In terms of the number of titles at the world championships, Nikolai has caught up with his father. Previously, Kruglov Jr. had two gold medals for victories in mixed relay races, which in 2005 and 2006 were held outside the main championship program.
In the women's team race, the failure of one participant excluded the Russian team from the fight for medals. The even performance of Anna Bogaliy and the debutant of tournaments of this level Ekaterina Yurieva, who took the place of Irina Malgina in our four, allowed us to stay in second place behind Germany. The stance at the third stage turned out to be fatal. Olga Anisimova made five misses with three accurate shots and went into penalty loops. For the French women, Delphine Peretto shot about as poorly in the second stage; for the Norwegian women, Tore Berger had to run an extra 150 m at the very beginning of the race. However, for these teams, one-time failures did not become an obstacle on the road to the podium. The winning teams include biathletes who are able to rehabilitate themselves for their mistakes on the track. There are no such people among Valery Polkhovsky’s wards.
Saturday's race with a mass start was illustrative in this regard. After leaving the fourth shooting range, three Germans and two Russians followed each other, strictly alternating. After half a kilometer, the Bundesteam athletes were already ahead, preparing for internal showdowns. Guseva and Yuryeva were hopelessly behind, and at the finish the latter was almost pushed out of fifth position by the Norwegian Linda Grubben.
In a similar men's race, Gries took revenge on Bjoerndalen. The Scandinavian was let down by four penalties in the second half of the race. He is able to play one or two penalties, but more is simply unrealistic. For the Russians, head coach Alikin decided to replace Yaroshenko with Rozhkov, who, according to his position in the overall World Cup standings, was on the so-called waiting list. The medal plan of team coach Vladimir Alikin (one award of each value) turned out to be unfulfilled. Our women's team performed worse only 12 years ago here in Anterselva - not a single prize in four disciplines. The representatives of the stronger sex in the 2005 season in Hochfilzen had, as now, two awards - “silver” in the relay and pursuit. According to the results of the championship in Anterselva, in the overall standings, Russia shared fourth place with the Swedes, the leading three were Germany, Norway and France.
Results. World Championship. Men. Relay. 1. Russia (Cherezov, Chudov, Yaroshenko, Kruglov) - 1.14.36 (0 penalty loops + 1 additional round). 2. Norway (Hannewold, Berger, Andresen, Bjoerndalen) - the gap is 1 minute exactly (1+11). 3. Germany (Gross, Rech, Fischer, Grice) - 1 min. 32 sec. (2+13). Mass start 15 km. 1. Grice - 37.52 (2 penalties). 2. Birnbacher (Germany) - lag 15 seconds. (0). 3. Poiret (France) - 26 (1)... 12. Kruglov - 1.00 (1). Women. Relay. 1. Germany (Glagow, Henkel, Neuner, Wilhelm) - 1.14.19 (0+7). 2. France (Baverel-Robert, Peretto, Becard, Bailey) - lag 1 min. 07 sec. (1+7). 3. Norway (Berger, Flatland, Morkve, Grubben) - 1.29 (1+6)... 7. Russia (Bogaliy, Yuryeva, Anisimova, Guseva) - 2.09 (2+10). Mass start 12.5 km. 1. Henkel - 37.13 (2). 2. Glagov - lag 5 seconds. (1). 3. Wilhelm (all - Germany) - 10 (2). 4. Guseva - 21 (1).