FISU: Russia, Kazakhstan and Finland rule Relay
Mar 09, 2019·Cross-Country
After taking out the women’s relay in the morning, the Russian men followed suit and won the 4x7.5km relay in a time of 1:15:22.2.
The Russian team was in a tight battle with Kazakhstan in the first half of the race. The Kazakh skiers took a 2.6 second lead into the first changeover, but Russia then took over with a slender 1.2 second advantage into the second changeover. After that, the Russians took the race by the scruff of the neck and widened the gap to 1:26.6 as the final skier crossed the finish line to confirm Russia’s gold medal.
“Well the race was quite good for us,” said Ivan Yakimushkin of Russia and acknowledged his teammate Kirill Kilivnyuk. “Thank you to Kirill because he made the great gap for me, psychologically, it gave me more strength. We are grateful to him, because the first two legs were difficult. The guys tried hard. Great thanks to the team of Kazakhstan because the race was quite tough.”
Kazakhstan ultimately held on for silver in spite of a late charge from Finland. Kazakhstan finished with a time of 1:16:48.8, ahead of Finland who finished in the bronze medal position with a time of 1:17:09.1.
“I didn’t have my best day. I have raced in every race so far, so I was running on empty,” said Joonas Sarkkinen of Finland, who became a double Winter Universiade medallist with this bronze. “The race was really difficult today, harder than yesterday's Team Sprint. It was especially hard to go uphill. The third place is perhaps the best we could get today.”
The Russian crowd were generous in their cheering as they willed all the nations on, not just their gold medal winning relay team. The lesser nations were greeted with a rapturous applause and cheer to motivate them on. However, the greatest cheer was held for the last Russian skier who crossed the finished line in first.
The men had to race four stages of 7.5 kilometres each: the first two were to be run in classic style, while the rest were to be completed in free style.
Earlier in the day, the women competed in a 3 x 5km relay and despite an early push from Finland, Russia led from start to finish to take home the gold medal in a time of 43:01.3 minutes.
Finland were neck-and-neck with Russia going into the first change over and entered the second stage of the race only 1.3 seconds behind. However, Russia surged ahead and never looked back as they widened their gap to 50.9 seconds at the second changeover. Russia’s final skier was dual gold medallist, in the ladies individual 5km and the 5km pursuit, Alisa Zhambalova, who continued Russia’s momentum and stormed home to finish 1:32.4 minutes ahead of second.
“Today we are very happy that we actually could work out through all these steps,” said an elated Zhambalova. “The weather today is different from yesterday and it’s very nice that our service men acted immediately when we chose our skis, it helped us a lot.”
After trailing Italy at the second change-over, Japan overtook the Italians in the final stages of the race to take home the silver medal in a time of 44:33.7 minutes. Italy finished third in a time of 44:56.4 minutes.
Japan’s Shiori said “The race was a little more difficult compared to yesterday. So, in the latter half of the race, my pace went down. We haven’t been close to a medal these last few years, so the level of our team mates has risen quite high recently and that’s the most happy thing about this event.”
Cross-country skiing competition at the Winter Universiade 2019 concludes with the women’s 15km mass start on 11 March and the men’s 30km mass start on 12 March. Both events will start at 11:30 local time (GMT +7) and will be streamed live on fisu.tv.
Results women
Russia
Japan
Italy
Results men
Russia
Kazakhstan
Finland
