Bolshunov wins his first race of the season in Khanty-Mansiysk. FIS has still not decided whether he can race abroad
Aleksandr Bolshunov has won his first race of the winter. The three-time Olympic champion took the freestyle sprint at “Yugoria. First Snow” in Khanty-Mansiysk on Sunday, the traditional opener of the Russian season. Whether he will be allowed to race outside Russia this winter is still undecided: two and a half weeks before the World Cup starts in Ruka, FIS has neither cleared nor refused his application for neutral status.
Bolshunov was only third in qualifying, 2.09 seconds behind Vladislav Tukachev, and second in his semi-final. In the four-man final he finished in 3:14.25, 0.40 seconds ahead of Denis Filimonov, a former Russian national-team skier whom the Russian federation’s results database now lists under Belarus. Ilya Tregubov was third at 1.73 seconds. The women’s sprint went to Marina Belorustseva, 0.16 seconds ahead of Irina Samoilova, with Anastasia Kameneva third. The field was 43 men and 21 women.
Men’s sprint final, Khanty-Mansiysk, 8 November
- Aleksandr Bolshunov 3:14.25
- Denis Filimonov +0.40
- Ilya Tregubov +1.73
- Nikolai Cheglakov +25.91
Women’s sprint final
- Marina Belorustseva 3:52.42
- Irina Samoilova +0.16
- Anastasia Kameneva +2.96
- Sofia Volkova +16.13
Head coach Yuri Borodavko played the result down. “It’s an ordinary training start. Even if it is official, it is seen first of all as training,” he told Match TV. “You can’t judge form from this race.” Bolshunov chose the sprint, he said, because racing makes it easier to reach speeds that are hard to find in training.
A race without World Cup skiers
The sprint says little about Ruka for another reason. None of the 16 men and women who reached the semi-finals is on the FIS list of cleared neutral athletes, which was still the 3 November version on Monday morning. Without that status a Russian or Belarusian skier cannot start any FIS race, so for now none of Sunday’s finalists could race the World Cup, whatever their form.
The sprint was not part of Russia’s World Cup selection either. That is decided by two 10 km races in Khanty-Mansiysk: classic technique on Tuesday 10 November and free technique on Wednesday 11 November. The federation has already picked eight skiers for Ruka and Trondheim on condition that FIS clears them, Bolshunov among them, and plans to fill the list to ten men and ten women. On the current FIS list, though, only seven Russian men and five women have both neutral status and the 150 FIS points or less needed to start a World Cup race, as our analysis showed. A new FIS points list takes effect on 12 November.
Talks with the FIS president
Federation president Dmitry Svishchev said on Saturday he was travelling to Khanty-Mansiysk to meet Bolshunov, the coaches and the athletes who have applied for neutral status but not yet received it. He also expected to speak to FIS president Alexander Ospelt on Monday or Tuesday. “We want to get final information from our colleagues at the international federation,” he told Match TV.
Svishchev said Bolshunov meets all the criteria for neutral status. “FIS is telling him neither yes nor no. They are dragging it out, and that does not work in our favour,” he said, pointing out that athletes still need visas before the first races. He added that for several athletes, whom he would not name, FIS has written asking the federation to justify their status, and that the federation will go to court for anyone who applies and is refused.
Applications are decided by a three-person FIS panel that does not publish its reasons. Only a refusal can be appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. FIS has said its board considered no individual cases when it met on 3 November, while sources told NRK the board agreed a reading of the rules that would keep Bolshunov out.