г.   First stage of World Cup in biathlon Today in Swedish Ostersund first stage of World Cup in biathlon has opened the season. Program was opened by Men Sprint: 10 km race with two shooting sessions. Temperature +2C and artificial snow made all participants a bit worried. Anyway Russian biathletes managed to succeed. Ivan Tcherezov finished the race in 10th place. Unfortunately two disappointing misses during standing stance didn’t allow Ivan to reach higher place in the end. Still, it’s important to notice that on the first lap Ivan showed best course time of 6.57,2 minutes. On the second lap his course time was 7.05,1 minutes and that result turned out to be 4th time of the day. So on the whole Ivan showed 2nd course time during the race with 20.55,7 minutes what was only 12,2 seconds worse than the result of Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, whose course time was undoubtedly the best. Overall Ivan’s time was 23.53,8 minutes. Tomorrow with a gap of 46,2 seconds Ivan will start his Pursuit. Best three results of today’s Sprint were: Stian Eckhoff (Norway), Raphael Poiree (France) and Ilmars Bricis (Latvia). Here are the results of other Russian biathletes: Sergei Rozhkov 6 (0 1), Nikolay Kruglov 8 (1 1), Pavel Rostovtsev 11 (0 1), Sergei Tchepikov 16 (0 1), Maxim Tchudov 21 (0 1), Sergei Bashkirov 42 (2 0). Among women first place went to Uschi Disl (Germany), second to Tadeja Brankovic (Slovenia), third to Katrin Apel (Germany). Russian biathletes finished with following results: Olga Zaitseva 5 (0 1), Anna Bogaliy-Titovets 6 (0 0), Svetlana Ishmouratova 7 (0 0), Irina Malgina 16 (0 0), Natalia Guseva 19 (0 1), Uliana Denisova 38 (1 2), Olga Pyleva 61 (1 2). For more detailed information and complete result list go to www.rbu-biathlon.