November 08, 2012 – There are only 16 days left until the start of the FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Gällivare, Sweden. Russia’s 24 athletes are going to take part in the opening ladies and men competitions.

Russian Team ready for the season © flgr.ru

The ladies’ part of the Russian Cross-Country team travelled to Europe already and has trained in Muonio, Finland. “All the athletes are healthy and we train as planned,” head coaches Gregor Menshenin and Dmitry Bugaev say. Russian skiers have been on snow already a month as they carried out a training camp in Ramsau.

Sprinters in Yakutia
Russian sprint specialists carried out the first winter training camp of the season in Aldan ,Yakutia region. The sprinters took part in a show competition that was organised at the opening of the new skiing centre in Aldan. The 85-long super sprint was won by Olympic Champion from 2010 Nikita Kriukov. “Unfortunately Alexey Petukhov and Anton Gafarov could not take part in the competition. Alexey has been recovering from illness and Anton has had small issues with his back. So we did not want to risk anything,” sprint coach Mikhail Deviatiarov said.