Olympic cross-country skiing champion Veronika Stepanova in a column on , she told how she managed to perform during the last winter season.
Stepanova won the women’s 4×5 km relay at the 2022 Games in Beijing. The Russian ran the final leg of the race and, by finishing first, became the youngest Olympic champion in cross-country skiing history. Earlier, at December’s World Cup stop in Lillehammer, Norway, Stepanova handed the Russian team their first win in the discipline since 2004.
– Last season, Yegor Vladimirovich Sorin brought me to the top of my form with extreme precision, and three times – during the selections for the World Cup team, then during the selections for the Olympics and, for the third time, at the Olympics themselves. Sorin, I think a great coach will make more than one athlete a champion. But objectively, I jumped a little higher than my head.
Yes, I seem to be very lucky with genetics, thanks to mom and dad.
Yes, I was lucky with the first coaches who did not lead me, but carefully prepared – they implemented the technique (skating), for example.
Yes, I worked hard and diligently all the years of my short career, subordinating my whole life to the result.
But I still don’t have enough of what is absolutely necessary in any cyclic sport – the so-called “base”. So as not to tire of the terminology, the “basis” is what is laid down by years of certain training. After working, you reach a certain level – conditionally, the top ten in the World Cup and no longer fall below (or fall, but rarely). That’s what Yohaug had in abundance, and what Natalia Nepryaeva, Tatyana Sorina, Yulia Stupak have. And at 21, I haven’t and frankly can’t be. I can pull myself together and show the required result those same three times in a season. And Natalia has dominated almost every race and I’m sure she will continue to dominate. Having already reached such a level, the athlete decides: a confident victory in one or two races – and rest or try to win everything, – wrote Stepanova.
On November 19, the first stage of the Russian Cup begins at the Top of Tyoi (Republic of Khakassia). The second stage of the competition will take place there from November 30 to December 5. Earlier, the Council of the International Ski Federation (FIS) decided to extend the suspension of Russian and Belarusian athletes from competitions under its auspices for an indefinite period.
Source : MatchTV
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