Queens of the track

Dzinara Smolskaya and Hanna Sola won the stage of the Commonwealth Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk

Hanna Sola, Belarusian biathlete 

The second stage of the Commonwealth Biathlon Cup, which ended at the weekend in Russia’s Khanty-Mansiysk, gave fans a whole range of emotions — from the annoyance caused by the not very successful performance of our athletes in the sprints that opened the programme, to the delight at two gold awards in the pursuit race and mass start. Moreover, this time the success is due to the leaders of the women’s national team — Dzinara Smolskaya and Hanna Sola. 
Unfortunately, Belarusians were left without awards in the sprint races: the best results were demonstrated by Dzinara Smolskaya, who took fourth place among our athletes in the women’s race, and Dzmitry Lazouski, who was on the eighth line of the final protocol in the men’s race. This, however, provided good opportunities to improve the position in the pursuit race. Dzinara took her chance. 
The Belarusian made two mistakes at four firing lines and broke into the lead at the end of the race. No one was able to get ahead of her. Anastasia Grishina, a 21-year-old Russian athlete who sensationally beat the leaders of her national team, lost more than 10 seconds to Dzinara, and Victoria Slivko, who closed the top three, lost half a minute. “I made some mistake at the first firing line, most likely downwind. At the second firing line, it was a very annoying miss, it should have hit the target. I got angry and decided that I would attack on the track and definitely not miss from a standing position,” Dzinara Smolskaya said in an interview with Match TV. “Unfortunately, I haven’t worked much on technique this year. Probably, I’ve been focused more on strength building and getting my body back in shape after childbirth. I got power back, now I’m trying to implement it. I think I pulled it off.”
The very next day, the Belarusian anthem was played at the stadium in Khanty-Mansiysk in honour of another young mother. Hanna Sola, who took 13th place in the sprint and 7th in the pursuit race, did not give her rivals a chance in the mass start: despite three misses, she beat the nearest competitor — Anastasiia Khalili — by 20.1 seconds! Immediately after the finish, Hanna admitted that at first, it was difficult for her to believe in victory, “Finally everything worked out after all those failures. I already wanted to give up. I am very glad that I even managed to finish with a flag — on top of that, in a race with four firing lines. I’m pleased about that. It’s a decent race for me.”
The biathletes of our men’s national team were left without awards at the Commonwealth Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, but they finished in the top 10 more than once.
Oleg Ryzhenkov — the head coach of the Belarusian national team — summed up the results of the stage on the air of Sports Centre. “The girls have two gold medals! Sadly, the guys did not succeed, although Anton Smolski and Dima Lazouski were close to the podium, and Maksim Varabei shows solid pace. Maybe some excitement played a role, excessive haste, and lack of concentration at the firing line. Excessive desire to show results sometimes gets in the way. Plus, there was a difficult wind situation. In principle, for the first winter stage, we are pleased that the functional readiness of our leaders — both girls and men — is at a high level. They feel great and are in good shape.” 
After the second stage of the Commonwealth Cup, Anton Smolski retained his leading position in the overall standings among men. Now he is 39 points ahead of Karim Khalili, who is in second place, and 56 points ahead of Eduard Latypov, who holds third place. Dzinara Smolskaya moved to the fourth place in the overall standings among women. She has 559 points, like Russian Kristina Reztsova, — 59 points behind the ranking leader, Tamara Derbusheva. 
The next stage of the Commonwealth Cup will be held on December 20th-22nd in Tchaikovsky, but before that, biathletes will continue to compete in Khanty-Mansiysk, which will host two more stages of the Russian Cup.

By Tatiana Pastushenko