Shooting: Shevchenko and Smolsky became triumphant in Raubichi

The Biathlon Cup - 2025 in Raubichi ended unsuccessfully for our men's national team. Out of four possible gold medals, three were won by Anton Smolski, vice-champion of the 2022 Games in Beijing. The Belarusian won the sprint, pursuit and mass start. The Russians managed to get only one gold medal, which was won by Karim Khalili in the individual race. But our women were happy. Natalia Shevchenko won the sprint and pursuit races, Irina Kazakevich won the individual race, and Viktoria Metelya was the first in the mass start. Also our women were successful in group races.

Where are the national teams?

The Cup of the strongest athletes ended on Sunday, February 23, with mass-starts. In the men's event, Karim Khalili rounded out the top three. Despite the fact that the athlete made one miss each on the second lie and the first rack, he still had a chance to fight for gold. But they ran away with Anton Smolsky and one more miss at the second rack, where Karim came within thirty seconds after Anton. As a result, the leader of the Belarusian team left on the lap, but Karim also caught a penalty.

The fifth, finishing lap Khalili passed in a group with Dmitry Lazovsky, Alexander Loginov and Eduard Latypov, these athletes were playing for silver and bronze, and Khalili lost on the last meters to Lazovsky.

- At the last rack I was already taking risks, I saw that Anton Smolsky missed and realized that I needed to shoot faster to fight for gold," Khalili told Izvestia. - The rest was not so important, so I tried, but I underperformed with the last shot. Why didn't you compete with Dima Lazovsky at the finish line? There is such a way to the finish - he gained good speed on the descent because of my back. The track is quite hard, and it was hard to add in the finishing line, considering that my legs were already tired.

Karim became the leader of the national team in Raubichi. In addition to bronze in the mass start, he also won gold in the individual event and silver in the pasciut.

- On the whole, something worked out, something didn't, but there is still work to be done," Khalili continued. - There is still time before the Russian Championships. Judging by the fact that the condition in Raubichi was not optimal, it means that there will still be an opportunity to try to reach the peak condition.

Also medals were brought to the national team by 20-year-old junior Savely Konovalov (silver in sprint), Anton Babikov (silver in individual event) and Alexander Povarnitsyn (bronze in individual event). Interestingly, all these athletes (including Khalili) were preparing for the 2024/25 season outside the national team and without the coaching guidance of Yuri Kaminsky. Belarus' catch in individual races (sprint, pursuit, individual race, mass start) is much more significant: three golds, one silver and two bronzes.

Shevchenko's triumph

The women's mass start was won by 21-year-old Russian Viktoria Metelya. She won unexpectedly for many, and for herself, having made only one mistake on the second rack, which dropped her to 13th place with a 30-second gap, and this gap could not be reduced on the third lap. After a clean first rack, she was already fifth, 15 seconds behind, and then the girls got together as a group of leaders and went through the whole fourth lap together, preparing for the final rack. From it Metel left already the leader and remained it till the finish (another Russian Tamara Derbusheva became the second, the third - Irina Shakleina from Belarus).

- Was it difficult to keep the gap after the fourth boundary? I didn't know, honestly speaking, how much I was winning," Victoria Metel admitted to Izvestia. - The coaches were shouting, but I just didn't hear what advantage I had, I didn't know until the last moment who was behind me, on the second and third places. If you look at the statistics, I do better in contact races. But in principle I try to run all races, to fight in all races, whether it is a race with a separate start, mass start and so on.

At the same time in the other races in Raubichi Blizzard could not compete for medals. The reasons were told by the athlete herself.

- First of all, I probably wanted a lot. Secondly, after coming here, I started to reacclimatize, which had never happened before, and I had some health problems, - continued Metelia. - I took it to heart, I was very worried, anxious and because of that I couldn't cope psychologically with shooting, although I was doing well. I started to have a mountain crisis quite early, on the second or third day after arriving from Sochi, and it lasted probably four days. It was a specific condition for me, I didn't know what to do in this case, I thought that maybe it was some kind of illness, that I had caught a cold somewhere. But still I think that it was the mountains that gave such an effect.

But Natalia Shevchenko was as stable as possible. In addition to two gold medals in the sprint (Dinara Smolskaya was second and Anastasia Shevchenko third) and pursuit (Smolskaya and Anastasia Khalili were also in the top-3), the multiple Russian champion was second in the individual race (35.4 seconds behind the winner Irina Kazakevich), and also won silver in the mixed relay.

- I felt the pressure at the beginning of the season, it prevented me from showing stable results, - emphasized Natalia Shevchenko. - Now everything is normal. I am determined to show a good result, no matter what. I should proceed from today's condition and show the maximum. In Raubichi I managed to do a lot, and it makes me happy before the start of the Russian Championship.

The Russian Championship races will be held in March in Tyumen (10-17), Uvat (17-21) and Khanty-Mansiysk (24-31).