The Russian crushed the competition on Sunday in the skiathlon. Injured at the start of the season, he regained great form at the right time, which raised some questions. He responds to his detractors.
© AFP
Alexander Bolshunov celebrates his victory just before crossing the finish line during the skiathlon.
Asked at a press conference about his skiathlon demonstration in Zhangjiakou and the big gaps made, the Russian Alexander Bolshunov, under a neutral flag, invited skeptics on Sunday to come and attend his training sessions to put an end to suspicions.
“If you want to attend my training sessions, you are welcome. After seeing how we train, you won’t ask yourself these questions anymore.
“If you want to personally attend my training sessions, please, you are welcome. These are very tough sessions. After seeing how we train, you and your readers will no longer ask yourselves these questions”, replied Alexander Bolshunov to a question about the doubts that his performance could cause.
In skiathlon on Saturday, Bolshunov accelerated early on following Finland’s Livo Niskanen in the classic style part, blowing the peloton up. And when changing skis for the 15 kilometers in skating, he quickly dropped the Scandinavian, more specialist in the classic style, to offer himself his first Olympic title.
A gap of several minutes
He crossed the finish line more than a minute ahead of his compatriot Denis Spitsov, and two minutes ahead of Niskanen, while at the Games the biggest gap between first and second n hadn’t exceeded ten seconds since the introduction of the 30 km skiathlon in 2006 in Turin.
“It was the toughest race I’ve seen. You see the results, there is a wide gap between the first and the top 10. Several minutes,” Norwegian coach Eirik Myhr Nossum told AFP.
Due to the doping system institutionalized within the Russian team at the Sochi Games in 2014, Russia evolves under a neutral flag during these Olympics as during the previous edition in Pyeongchang, where Bolshunov was already engaged.
“We have clean athletes here. We do tests almost every day, we inform the places where we are, the times when we are available to be tested.
“We have Olympics-specific athletes here. We do tests almost every day, we provide information on where we are, when we are available to be tested. I think it’s wrong to ask ourselves this question,” insisted Bolshunov.