In Vancouver the Russians have finally won the long-awaited gold medal in biathlon. Yevgeny Ustyugov hit all the targets, denied his rivals any chance of winning and won the mass start race. What's more, he was all alone when crossing the finishing line. Russian woman biathlete Olga Zaitseva also did her utmost and won the silver medal.
Russian biathletes are the odds-on favourites to grab the Olympic gold medals, a strongest team in the world, said both experts and the press in the run-up to the event. But the best Russians could achieve was the fourth place following the first three races. It was now snowing, now raining, but something invariably was the reason why Russian biathletes failed to win. Few pinned hopes on the mass start race, including the athletes. After the Olympic champion Yevgeny Ustyugov finished the race, he said it was long since he was so nervous as during the competition. Here's more from Yevgeny Ustyugov.
"It was quite hard at the start, Yevgeny Ustyugov says, with everyone exerting themselves to dash forward, but closer to the finish I felt stronger than my basic competitor Pavol Huraijt of Slovakia (no offence meant), so I took the lead. I didn't know who was in the third place, but I realized I should speed up and get away from the Slovak. Whatever God does is for the best, and Team Russia has finally won its gold medal at the Olympics that we've not been quite lucky at so far".
No one missed at the first firing position, with all 20 racers continuing to run in one group, but the group of leaders grew smaller after the second firing point, while only two racers, Yevgeny Ustygov and Pavol Hurajt, still stood a chance of winning the event after the third shooting. But if both were perfect at the firing line, the Russian proved superior to the Slovak during the race and left the latter far behind. The luck was finally mine, Ustyugov says.
"Yevgeny Ustyugov is saying that he is happy to have won one of the greatest races and he still cannot realize what has happened. A mass start race is something that largely differs from others. He says he was lucky at shooting, with some of his bullets seeming to hit the target on their own. Ustyugov adds that he tries to win any race he's involved in. But this time he was in a special mood to win, and he did it".
During the individual race Yevgeny once missed the target, which cost him a medal. So, he bent every effort to win during the mass start race, where the winner is determined at the last stage. Yevgeny Ustyugov admits that he was nervous about shooting and hated to think he could get the invidious fourth place.
Meanwhile the Russian woman-biathlete Olga Zaitseva, the Turin Olympian champion, won the silver medal. Another Russian, Olga Medvedtseva, nearly missed her bronze medal and came in fourth. So, the Russian biathletes have won spurs back again following a series of defeats and misfortunes.
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