Russian Triumph in Biathlon Mixed Relay

Russian and Kazakh relay

OSRBLIE – Russia continues its harvest of medals in biathlon. Indeed, the mixed relay (men’s 2×7.5km & women’s 2x6km) was held on 30 January, 2015 in the National Biathlon Centre in Osrblie and the race was exciting until the end. The Russian team, which started as the favourite, was composed of Kristina Smirnova (bronze medal 10km pursuit) Evegeniia Pavlova (gold medallist 10km pursuit and silver 7.5km sprint), Vadim Filimonov (silver medallist individual 20km) and Yuri Shopin (gold medallist 12.5km pursuit, double bronze medallist in sprint and 10km & individual 20km).

The race began in very difficult conditions for the athletes. And yet it was Team Kazakhstan (Vishnevskaya, Kistanova, Braun & Podkorytov) who took the lead in the first two relays, ahead of Russia and Ukraine (Brygynets, Bondar, Tkalenko & Rusinov), taking advantage of shooting errors of its opponents. But in the third relay, Braun completely missed his shooting sessions (5 missed shots) and Filimonov took the opportunity to take the lead with three tenths of a second. On the last relay, Russian Shopin, definitely in great shape, sprinted away to offer a new gold medal to Russia (1:38:38.4), beating the Kazakh skier Podkorytov (1:37:11.6), completely overwhelmed during his last lap, and Ukrainian Rusinov (1:37:27.6).

Ukrainian relay

With 13 of the 21 medals (4 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze) secured, Russia dominates this WU biathlon competition.

The last two events will be held tomorrow with the men’s 15km mass start and the women’s 12.5km mass start.

David Vandenplas, Media Assistant