On December 2, 2018, Russian athletes were close to winning the mixed relay of the Biathlon World Cup in Pokljuka. Despite a relatively good performance, they did not manage to enter the top three. What caused such an unconvincing result of our team? Perhaps it was necessary to swap the athletes at the stages of the competition?
Irina Starykh, Ekaterina Yurlova - Perkht, Dmitry Malyshko, Alexander Loginov ran for the Russian national team. By tradition, all national teams had strong athletes. Before the start, it was possible to predict who would be the favorite. They were Italians Vitozzi, Wierer, Hofer, Windisch, representatives of France Bescon, Breza, Martin Fourcade, Destieux.
First stage
After the start, Lisa Vitotsi and Bescone took the lead. Starikh started the race weakly, but rehabilitated herself on the second lap. She reduced the gap from the first number from 13 to 7 seconds.
Finland was in the lead in the first segment of the competition. After her in the table of results of the mixed relay, France and Italy are located. Irina Starykh barely reached the finish line and passed the baton to Yurlova-Perkht. Ekaterina entered the race fifth, 16.5 seconds behind the leader.
Second phase
Finland came out ahead. This was facilitated by the competent work of the Finnish woman Kaisa Makaryainen. She led the stage all the time. The closest to her was the Italian with a loss of 29 seconds. The French woman lost to the Finnish biathlete 39. Ekaterina Yurlova performed frankly poorly. She lost 1.10 seconds to the leader. Katya crossed the finish line in sixth position.
Stage Three
From the Russian national biathlon team, Dmitry Malyshko went to the track. He managed to close the gap with the Finnish leaders to 6 seconds. Martin Fourcade did an excellent shooting at the turn and took the lead in the race. He overtook Finn Seppälä, who broke the whole game for his team with a shooting failure.
Fourth stage
France took first place in time in the mixed relay table. It was followed by Switzerland, Italy, Finland. Loginov took the baton from Malyshko fifth. Martin Fourcade, Destieux, Finello, Hindesalo fought for medals. In this rivalry, the Frenchman won. He overtook the Swiss Finello by 35 seconds at the very beginning of his performance.
The Swiss national team took the second place in the mixed relay table. Italians are on the third line. Representatives of the Russian Federation were able to climb only to the fourth position, 1.17 seconds behind the leaders.
The results of the mixed relay in Slovenian Pokljuka cannot be called successful for the Russian biathlon team. However, our guys managed to surpass very strong teams from other European national teams. We need to believe that our biathletes will find the strength, motivation and will be able to compete for the World Cup medals.
The result of the competition:
- France;
- Switzerland;
- Italy;
- Russia;
- Finland;
- Norway;
- Germany;
- Sweden;
- Ukraine;
- Canada.
