Step by step

The women and men pursuit races took place on December 10^th in Austrian Hochfilzen. The Russian team won another Sprint with a help of Olga Zaytseva, Anton Shipulin was best among the Russian men and finished 7^th. The fight of Domracheva and Zaytseva at the finish, Bogaliy-Titovets and Vilukhina in the flowers, and Timofey Lapshin, who is getting stronger, are in the photo reportage of Biathlonrus.com.

The weather in Hochfilzen was friendly to the biathletes on the second day of competition. All the misses with the weather like this come from the psychology, believe professionals. The Russian athletes went checking their nerves in pursuit with the good starting positions, earned the day earlier in the sprint.

The Silver prize-winner of the sprint Andrey Makoveev started the pursuit quickly and approached the leader Carl Johan Bergman at the first kilometer. The Swedish biathlete missed once at the first shooting, Makoveev shot clean and led the race. But the happiness was not long. Makoveev missed four times at the second prone shooting; however those were his last mistakes during the race. Andrey finished 11^th. Emil Hegle Svendsen won the Gold, outstripping Tarjei Boe at the last meter of the distance.

Anton Shipulin was the best among the Russian fininshing 7^th. Anton is speeding up - he had third course time in the pursuit. Evgeny Ustyugov had the fifth time, but made too many mistakes in shooting. Timofey Lapshin, who fininshed 18^th, worse a special mentioning — before the last shooting he was in the head of the peloton due to his clean and fast shooting. The nerves failed him at the last shooting and Timofey missed twice. The main thing is that Timofey got up an appetite for fight with the leaders of the biathlon. The young Russian should know that he is capable of great things.

Olga Zaytseva had the best position at the start of the race — 3^rd. Olga Vilukhina was close at the 7^th line. After the first half of the race both Olgas were in the top-3 group, chasing Magdalena Neuner. Vilukhina missed once at the third shooting, but Zaytseva continued competing for the victory.

At the final shooting Neuner gave the chance to Olga missing twice. Zaytseva missed once and went to the last kilometers of the race in a company of Neuner and Darya Domracheva. The Byelorussian girl was stronger in a contact fight, Zaytseva took Silver, Neuner finished third. The finish of the race was fantastic — exactly for the moments like this we like biathlon. Whine the attention of the spectators was wholly taken by the first three ladies, Anna Bogaliy-Titovets climbed to the fifth place, Olga Vilukhina — 6^th. Three Russians in the flower ceremony is a good sign for the tomorrow's relay.

The relays will take place on December 11th in Hochfilzen. The men's race will start at 10:30 (GMT+1), women's - 14:30 (GMT+1). Anton Shipulin will start the race of the men's team, Andrey Makoveev will have the second leg, Evgeny Ustyugov — 3rd, and Dmitry Malyshko — 4th. Svetlana Sleptsova will open the relay from the Russian women's team, Natalia Sorokina will compete at the second leg, AnnaBogaliy-Titovets — at third, and Olga Zaytseva — at fourth.