The victory for our team at the World Cup was brought by those on whom the specialists did not count at all. And this is alarming.
The victory for our team at the World Cup was brought by those on whom the specialists did not count at all. And this is alarming.
The Russian national team sensationally won the fifth stage of the Biathlon World Cup. Anton Babikov and Christina Reztsova took gold in the single mixed relay. Just imagine, our team has not won this discipline since 2015!
For the Russians, the race turned out to be truly dramatic. Reztsova received a penalty loop at the very first stage, but did not allow this error to affect the outcome of the start. Anton and Christina added on each next segment – and finished first with a colossal, by the standards of a supermixt, advantage of 41.5 seconds.
The success of Reztsova and Babikov is doubly symbolic. After all, three months ago, they were not expected to win from them – they were not seen in the main team at all.
Why didn’t the coaches initially count on Anton and Christina?
“We need to work here and now”
A year ago, Reztsova’s sporting future was hazy. Christina had to skip the winter part of the season due to pregnancy – and then it was not known how long it would take for a biathlete to recover from childbirth and get back on skis.
Reztsova started training in the spring, but on an individual basis. In the end, Christina did not get into any of the preparatory groups as part of the national team – and until recently she worked independently. In an interview, the biathlete said that in an amicable way she should not have made it to the national team, since she did not participate in the centralized preparation for the World Cup.
Ultimately, it was Reztsova, in whom the coaches had lost faith, who took on the role of the leader of the Russian team.
Already in Hochfilzen, Christina repeated the best result in her career, finishing second in the relay. In Annecy, a biathlete first climbed the podium in a personal race – she won bronze at the end of the mass start. Now Reztsova is in eighth place in the women’s ranking of the season, surpassing all her colleagues in the national team!
– I am glad that it turns out to be the result of the fact that I was not in vain taken into the team, although I prepared myself. When you get into the national team, preparing outside the national team, it is always a big responsibility, because once you stumble, that’s all. I really hope that I will be able to spend this season with dignity, – said Reztsova in December.
A month later, Christina took on new heights, winning the second gold for the national team. This victory is especially important for the team in the context of the Olympic season. The success of Reztsova and Babikov gave the Russians an additional 55 points in the ranking and brought the men’s team closer to heading to Beijing with their full complement. Christina, however, admitted that during the race she tried not to think regarding global problems. After the mistake, the athlete simply “gathered her will into a fist” – and turned the course of the race.
– When I went to the penalty loop, I thought: “What a shame!” And now the feeling that we are great. Unfortunately, during the race there were thoughts that we were in first place. But when I came to the line, I said to myself, they say, I don’t care where I’m running. We need to work here and now. There is installation and nothing else around.
“There was no thought that it was possible to finish everything”
Anton Bibikov’s situation is not identical, but very similar. The world champion was not initially included in the plans of Yuri Kaminsky and the coaching staff. Anton did not receive an invitation to the national team before the start of the winter season and instead of the world tour went to the IBU Cup. The biathlete had not played in the elite for a whole year before – it is not surprising that the team did not particularly count on him.
However, an experienced athlete quickly proved that he had nothing to do in minor tournaments. Having won three golds at the start of the IBU Cup, two of which are personal, he soon went up to promotion. Together with Maxim Tsvetkov Babikov was called up to the national team instead of Vasily Tomshin.
And Anton really strengthened the team right off the bat. The biathlete joined his compatriots only in Oberhof, and in the very first race – the sprint – he took sixth place, showing the best result among Russians following the winner Alexandra Loginova… And already in the supermixt Babikov repeated the result of his colleague. The leitmotif of his interview, as in the case of Christina, was overcoming oneself:
– I’m glad that everything worked out for us today. And not so much for myself as for the team, for us it was a very important race. When Christina entered the penalty loop, there was no thought that it was possible to end everything. I thought that in this race everything might turn over for sure. At first, everything did not go according to our plan, but each of us managed to pull ourselves together and do what was expected of us.
It is significant that the long-awaited gold for the country was brought by a couple of athletes who might not have been in the national team. Christina – for personal and organizational reasons, Anton – for sports. And both approached the season in the same position: they had something to prove to the coaches and to themselves – and the motivation did its job.
One can only rejoice for Babikov and Reztsova, but this does not negate the questions for the coaches.
Why weren’t these athletes in the original composition of the Russian national team?
Why does Christina, who studied separately, tear apart those who received centralized training?
And how many more strong biathletes did not make it to the team because of the shortsightedness of the coaches?
Let the criticism of the coaches following the historical success of our biathletes may seem inappropriate, but it is precisely because of such oddities in the formation of the composition that Russians so rarely win at the main starts of the world biathlon.
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