Smolski: it’s a great honour to win Olympic medal for the country
Men’s 20km individual race with four firing lines, in which the Belarusian biathlete Anton Smolski claimed silver, turned out to be very difficult, but our shooting skier is, of course, pleased with his performance – as he told Belarus 1 TV channel
“I could not recover from the last lap for 5-10 minutes, because this lap was probably the hardest in my life,” said the silver medallist of the Olympic Games. “High altitude does not enable you to give all your best, hindering movement and muscles. For me, this day has just begun. I still don’t fully realise what happened, but I am very glad that I shot clean at all four firing lines. I tried not to repeat the mistakes of Dzinara [the leader of our team finished fifth in women’s 15km individual] and I did it.
— Did she give you any advice before the race?
— She told me not to repeat her mistakes, not to hang a medal around the neck ahead of time and not to think about the final result without doing the job to the end.
— What were you thinking about on the last lap?
— I was thinking to the last that it was necessary to preserve the technique. With every metre, my strength oozed away, it became harder to run. If I had to run another 500 metres, I don’t know how I would have coped because I gave my all.
— We have not had Olympic medals in the men’s biathlon since the 2010 Olympic Games...
— It’s a great honour for me to bring an Olympic medal to the country and to please my relatives, friends, fellow countrymen, everyone who knows me and invested their efforts and time in me, believing in me to the last. Taking this opportunity, I want to say hello to my family, my mother, my first coach and my personal coach.
In men’s 20km individual race, Anton Smolski hit all 20 targets and took second place in the final protocol – 14.8 seconds behind Quentin Fillon-Maillet of France. Bronze went to Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Bø (+31.1).
