2018-2019 short track season recap: Russia

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

By Jackob Savard

Photo: Schaats Foto’s


The Russian short track team showed good things during the 2018-2019 season on the individual level as well as in the relay events.

Efremenkova and Prosvirnova led a strong women's team

The Russian ladies were led by Sofia Prosvirnova and Ekaterina Efremenkova. In the overall World cup rankings, Prosvirnova ended in 2nd place on the 1000m while Efremenkova got 4th on 1500m as her best result. Alongside their teammates Emina Malagich and Ekaterina Konstantinova, they finished first of the 3000m relay World cup ranking. Prosvirnova closed her 2018-2019 season with a 6th place at World championships including a 3rd place on 1500m while Efremenkova finished 15th overall.

Elistratov joined the party late but delivered

With Viktor An’s retirement, Dmitry Migunov now skating for France and Ruslan Zakharov's switch to long track, the Russian men’s team is in a transition phase. We saw some new faces this season but no major results came from the newcomers. They mostly gained experience for the upcoming seasons. Russian team veteran and olympic medalist Semen Elistratov missed the first two World cup events of the season but came back in shape. Even if he didn’t skate two of the six 1500m of the season, Elistratov managed to reach the top 10 of the World cup ranking on the distance. At Worlds, he finished 3rd overall with podiums on 1000m and 3000m. A nice way to finish his season.

The Russian team also won the mixed relay World cup ranking.

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