In the Russian team no new cases of coronavirus have been identified, which means that the competition is going according to plan. Today at the Olympics Russia received its first medal.
At the start of the skiathlon, the leader of the World Cup and the winner of the Tour de Ski, Natalya Nepryaeva, came out as a real contender for gold. But the leadership is immediately captured by the main competitor, the famous Teresa Johaug, already by the middle of the distance, in fact, having removed questions about the winner. But then the fight went on to the very finish line, where Nepryaeva breaks the pursuit group.
“It’s hard for me to find words now, because I’m extremely happy. This is my first personal medal at the Olympic Games and this is a huge step forward for me. I probably don’t even realize it yet,” admits Natalya Nepryaeva, silver medalist of the Beijing Olympics .
While Natalia received flowers (medals – tomorrow), skiers with weapons went to the start. It’s more difficult with favorites here: the Zhangjiakou wind turned “how you aim” into “how lucky”. By the third stage, ours lost a minute, but Alexander Loginov changed everything, who bypassed everyone at the borders and passed the baton first.
He was also supported by Eduard Latypov, who missed two weeks of training due to quarantine. He shot on a par with his competitors and only at the very finish lost literally a meter. And yet the second medal of the day – the Russians.
“A medal at the Olympics is a success, I am glad and grateful to the team that we were on the podium. This is the first race, we will look to a bright future and tune in for further races,” said Alexander Loginov, the bronze medalist of the Beijing Olympics.
And in the Beijing cluster at that time, without exaggeration, history was being written: Claudia Pechstein came on the ice. She will be 50 in three weeks.
“For me, a dream has become a reality. I am the only woman who has taken part in 8 Olympics! I can’t believe it!” says Claudia Pechstein, five-time Olympic speed skating champion.
Our third medal hope of the day was for the short track mixed relay. But due to the blockage on the ice, which is not uncommon for this type, our fight ended in the semifinals.
Snowboarders are preparing for their decisive races. To the mountain by shuttle – only 10 minutes. Before that, you can walk around the village and play a quiz about the Olympics – they give badges for this. Well, and, of course, breakfast.
Russian hockey players planned the first training match today. But rivals from Latvia covered virus – just seven cases. As a result, we have an extra training.
This is how the current Games turn out: journalists at the warm-ups of the teams have to first deal with the oral count of the players. How many of them, the coach decides. But in front of him is a covid officer. This time everyone was counted: Nikita Nesterov, Andrey Kuzmenko and Sergey Fedorov joined the team after two negative tests.
Today we went on the ice after a short sleep: many, following the captain, opened these Games the day before.
“For many guys, this is the first Olympics, a landmark event, so we decided to go. We had a good time. I have never been to the opening, I hope to get to Milan,” said Ilya Kovalchuk, general manager of the ROC hockey team. This is despite the fact that the Milan Olympics for Ilya Kovalchuk will be the seventh. Many athletes did not get to the current opening, but everyone definitely joined.
Cheerful goalkeeper of the Czechs has already flown to Beijing to join the team. The men’s hockey tournament kicks off on February 9 with the Russia-Switzerland match.
Watch all the key moments of the Olympic Games, comments from sports stars and exclusive stories not only on the air of the Rossiya 1 TV channel, but also on the online platform “Looking”. Throughout the Olympiad, daily diaries “Looking in Beijing” will be published there: with the main results of each competitive day, live broadcasts and a detailed analysis of the brightest episodes of all competitions.