The Russians men’s team with Ivan Babikov, Serguei Novikov, Ilia Chernousov and Sergej Shiriaev, won without their well known team leaders today’s 4 x 10 km relay competition in Davos, Switzerland.
The Russian finished in the exciting 4 x 10 km race shortly 0,4 seconds ahead of the Italian Team (Valerio Checchi, Giorgio Di Centa, Fabio Santus and Pietro Piller-Cottrer). The third place took Team France (Jean Marc Gaillard, Vincent Vittoz, Emmanuel Jonnier and Alexandre Rousselet) also only 0,5 seconds behind. The team from Czech Republic with Milan Sprl lost the sprint against the other teams and finished fourth.
The Russian team could celebrate with this victory the second of the season. Sergej Shiriaev, the fourth racer of the successful Russian team, show today his shape and brought the team from the fifth place after the third exchange to the top. For the Italian, the current Olympic Champion, as well as for the French team it was there first podium place this season in a World Cup relay.
Number of participants/ participating nations: 16 team (three of them were mixed teams)
Spectators: 3.000
Weather: sunny, -3°C