2018-2019 long track season recap: Russia

Here’s our 2018-2019 season recap for team Russia in long track speed skating.

By Jackob Savard

Photo: Schaats Foto’s

Many Russian skaters managed to get good results in the 2018-2019 long track speed skating season.

Many well ranked skaters in the World cup season

Russia had a solid group of ladies again this year. Olga Fatkulina ended the season in 3rd position of the 500m ranking and 6th of the 1000m ranking while her sprint events teammates Angelina Golikova and Daria Kachanova also had good results. In the World cup rankings, Kachanova finished 6th on 500m and 5th on 1000m while Golikova finished 4th in the 500m. Yekaterina Shikhova finished 5th on 1500m and 7th on 1000m while Natalia Voronina was strong in the long distances finishing 3rd overall.

The men’s squad was mainly led by Pavel Kulizhnikov and Denis Yuskov who respectively won the 500m and 1500m World cup rankings. Kulizhnikov also managed to finish 3rd of the 1000m classification. Ruslan Murashov and Viktor Mushtakov were good in the sprint distances both finishing in the top 10 on different distances. Concerning the long distances, Alexander Rumyantsev won the 5000m-10000m ranking while his teammates Danila Semerikov and Sergey Trofimov finished in the top 8.

Two champions and some medalists in the championships

During the championships season, two Russian skaters were crowned world champions. Pavel Kulizhnikov claimed the 2019 world sprint champion title in Heerenveen while his teammate Ruslan Murashov was crowned 500m world champion at the Single distances championships in Inzell. Olga Fatkulina, Daria Kachanova, Natalia Voronina, Elizaveta Kazelina, Viktor Mushtakov, Denis Yuskov and Danila Semerikov all managed to get at least one championship podium. Note that Pavel Kulizhnikov established the new 500m world record of 33.61 at the World cup final in Salt Lake City.

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