The fourth stage of the PhosAgro Russian Cup did not bring fans of Alexander Bolshunov any reason to rejoice. A small flash of leadership at the beginning of the time trial ended in another race without medals.

Disappointing defeat in the final

The start of the fourth stage of the Russian Cup in Izhevsk seemed to be quite good for Bolshunov. Alexander confidently made it to the sprint final with a classic move, demonstrating good physical readiness compared to his competitors.

But the final race turned out dramatically for Bolshunov. The athlete, together with Alexander Terentyev, hesitated at the start, believing that there was a false start. However, the judges did not stop the race. We had to urgently catch up with the gap. Unlike Terentyev, Bolshunov did not have enough strength to compete for at least three at the finish line.

The Olympic champion’s emotional distress after the end of the race is easy to understand. This season, nothing is working out anyway, and such disappointing defeats are also happening. It is not surprising that he came into conflict with journalists, accusing them of “hyping” his name.

Alexander Bolshunov / Photo: © RIA Novosti / Ramil Sitdikov

Pulled like 500

In the classic style time trial for 20 km, the participants had to compete not only with the unusual length of the distance in Izhevsk, but also with the weather. The conditions were also complicated for the skiers by the wet snow that fell during the race.

The first serious benchmark during the acceleration was set by Evgeniy Semyashkin (3:22.5). This result at the 1.4 km mark remained in first place even after the passage of the favorites. But by the end of the first lap he lost the lead to Ilya Semikov. Bolshunov replaced the athlete from Komi, ahead by 2.5 seconds. Even the confident leader of the overall standings, Sergei Ardashev, who showed the third result, could not move Alexander forward.

The second round was more difficult for Bolshunov. He was inferior not only to Semikov’s result (+7.8 sec), but also to Ardashev’s (+5.9 sec). In the next “five”, Alexander continued to lag behind the leaders, even dropping to fourth position (+14.5 seconds), losing to Poroshkin. Changes took place in the first two again. Ardashev was 1.8 seconds ahead of Semikov.

Two kilometers before the finish, Bolshunov still had a chance for a medal, although he fell back to fifth place, but the famous athlete was again not enough to finish. In the final protocol, he was only in fifth place (+ 39.8 seconds). The first place went to Ardashev, the second was Ilya Semikov (+17.2 sec), and Alexey Chervotkin (+34.3 sec) took third place.

Watch PhosAgro’s live broadcasts of the Russian Ski Cup on the TV channels of the Match group, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.