The President of the Ukrainian Biathlon Federation summed up the results of the season
The president Biathlon Federation of Ukraine Ivan Krulko summed up the preliminary results of the current season for the Ukrainian national teams.
“Even before the start of the season, we understood that it would not be easy. Because the team is at the stage of transformation and we expected that it would be very difficult for our women’s team. As you know, in the spring of last year we changed our coaching staff, and we remember how disorganized our girls looked in the previous season. Therefore, now we did not have hopes for some kind of huge breakthrough, because this requires time and work. New athletes will not appear in Ukraine by chance – we must rely on those athletes who are in the squad. At the same time, we see some progress this season.”
“The work of Nikolai Nikolaevich Zots has yielded tangible results. I am very glad that this season Kristina Dmitrenko broke into the main team, who became the finisher of the relay, and shows good results during individual competitions.”
“The fifth place of the women’s relay team, as well as Christina’s eighth place in the individual race at the World Championships, is the result of a major start, which gives reason to work in the chosen direction and expect that our results will improve.”
“As for the men’s team, we had higher expectations at the start of the season than the racing results showed.”
“In particular, Taras Lesyuk’s gold medal at the Summer World Championships prompted us to do this. But now, after the season, we will figure out why it happened that the physical condition of our team did not allow us to show the result that we could have expected, given the composition of the team. We have very good athletes in both team A and team B, and also, in my opinion, a very good galaxy of juniors. The latter is evidenced by the guys’ record performance in the relay race at the Junior World Championships, where they won silver in the fight.”
It is obvious that something needs to change in preparation for the season. After all, at the beginning of autumn, our team looked much better in control races than the level that it later demonstrated during official competitions.
“So if we talk about the season in general, we saw that there were both ups and downs – and that’s normal. I would like to say right away that the performance of the women’s part of our team in the mixed relay, where already at the Anna Krivonos stage Ukraine was dismissed as a round robin, is, of course, a failure. And if the reasons for such a speech have yet to be analyzed, then there can be no excuses. The Ukrainian team has no right to be closed for a loop in the mixed relay. This has never happened before, and I, like all our fans, was, to put it mildly, disappointed with this result. But such races also give us an understanding of where we need to go and what lineups we should have for the next season, because we must direct our views into the pre-Olympic year.”
Let us remind you that for the first time in history, Ukrainian biathletes were removed as round robin from the mixed relay at the World Cup level. Already at the second stage of the race in Holmenkollen, after three penalty laps, the Ukrainian team completed the competition.
There will be two stages at the 2023/24 Biathlon World Cup. The next competition will be held in the USA from March 8 to 10.
Source: Sportarena
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