“Where is everyone preparing and for what?” Babikov crushed his fellow biathletes in the Commonwealth Cup
Andrey Shitikhin September 10, 2023, 15:45 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
The veteran of the Russian national team was surprised by the number of starters: there were not even enough athletes for the mass start.
In Sochi, the first stage of the Commonwealth Biathlon Cup ended with shortened mass starts. Its winners were Anton Smolsky and Anastasia Goreeva, but the race was remembered not only for this.
Smolsky defeated Latypov again
In the men’s race there were no big surprises. Once again the Belarusian Anton Smolsky and the Russian Eduard Latypov fought for victory.
Decisive was the final shooting line, from which Anton ran away covering all the goals, and Eduard was delayed by a penalty loop. At the exit from the stadium, there were 14 seconds between them, in the end – a little more than five, but it doesn’t matter. It matters who crossed the line first.
After the race, the Russian said that, given the way he was approaching the Commonwealth Cup, he made at least four. Latypov started worse last season.
Third place was sensationally taken by Belarusian Ilya Avseenko, who turned out to be faster with his legs than his compatriot Dmitry Lazovsky.
“Why are 28 people participating in the mass outing?”
In fifth place came Anton Babikov, who complained that even the regular mass start did not have a full audience, and initially it was planned to organize a mega-mass start with 60 participants. The Belarusians entered the final race in full force and the Russians retreated one after another. Alexander Loginov, Vasily Tomshin, Karim Khalili and other strong biathletes were not there.
Babikov won bronze in the pursuit:
Latypov took the last shot, but missed. And Babikov took bronze in the end!
“Probably the guys are pursuing other goals, preparing for the main start of the season, probably everyone will be super strong in Zlatoust. In general, I am surprised why 28 people compete in a mass start if we only have 15 strong guys in the national team. Where are you preparing? My question is: why?
The audience has come, we must please them by performing here. I understand that there are athletes like Alexander Loginov who have not competed for six months before, there are those who are sick and cannot compete, but everyone else, in my opinion, should go to the starting line. Here we were talking about a great mass start, but in the end we did not recruit people for the regular start,” Babikov said after the finale in an interview with Match TV.
Slivko won prizes in all races
The women’s race was won by Anastasia Goreeva with a clear lead. The biathlete from the Moscow region made two mistakes in four stages, she was fast over the distance and after the finish she admitted that in general she was satisfied with her performance in Sochi, if we do not take into account the sprint. In that race, Anastasia placed eighth, in the pursuit, second, and won the mass start. Everything is ascending.
Victoria Slivko finished in the top three in all races. In the mass start she made only one mistake and fought for second place, but being too careful on the slopes did not allow her to offer resistance to former skier Natalia Shevchenko in the final stretch of the distance.
Hey, this last frontier
Biathlete Alisa Pugina from the Moscow region finished tenth in the mass start. This girl reached 10 goals in the sprint, 20 in the pursuit and in the mass start she was precise until the last line, where she, unfortunately, made a mistake once. 49 accurate shots out of 50 is an excellent result.
Former skier escapes in biathlon:
Exclusive
“I don’t act with a crown on my head.” Former skier of the Russian national team: about victories in biathlon
One can only dream of such a shoot for former skier Anna Grukhvina, who unexpectedly took the start of the last race of the Sochi stage of the Commonwealth Cup; her participation was not initially planned. Anna committed 11 penalties and finished 23rd. In total, Elena Kruchinkina, who returned to Russia from Belarus, had one less failure. She is forced to relearn how to shoot because a problem has arisen with a German rifle and there are practically no Russian lefties.
The next big start of our biathlon is the Russian summer championship in Tyumen.
