Skier Alexander Bolshunov won two races at the start of the World Cup

Russian skier Alexander Bolshunov won gold in an individual race for 15 kilometers at the stage of the World Cup in Finland after the Saturday Triumph in the sprint race by a classic course.

In the Sunday race, he overcame a 15-kilometer distance in 36 minutes 17.8 seconds. The second was the Norwegian Emil Iversen (+19.5), and closed the top three Swede Calle Halvarsson (+21.2). The first ten of the Russians also included Andrei Larkov (+ 34.3) and Maxim Vylegzhanin (+ 42.2).

After the race, the announcer in the stadium awarded Alexander the title of "King of the city of the hand", which the triumph himself modestly abandoned.

“Not so it, I do not consider myself like that,” RIA Novosti quotes Bolshunov. “After all, only the beginning of the season and the whole struggle is still ahead, and now it’s pointless to draw some conclusions. I am glad that the race has developed, the skis rode.”

Bolshunov at the moment is a leader in all individual tests of the World Cup: in general, sprint and remote. He scored 200 points after winning two of 36 races. Women's offset with 145 points is headed by Russian woman Julia Belorukova, who also won on Saturday sprint.

In the overall standings of the World Cup last season, Bolshunov was the fifth. At the Olympics in Pyeongchang, the Russian won bronze in personal sprint with a classic style and silver in the mass start of 50 km, along with Denis Spittsov - silver in the command sprint with a free style, along with Andrei Larkov, Spitov and Alexei Chervotkin - silver in the 4x10 km relay.