Russian A-Team for 2019/20 Has 40 Athletes, More Than Any Competitor

The Russian Ski Federation has made public the national team’s training groups for the season of 2019/2020.

No fundamental changes – boss of the Russian skiing Elena Vyalbe & her coaches believe in internal competition within the Team Russia so for the upcoming season it will continue to be based around training groups led by Markus Cramer, Yuri Borodavko and Oleg Perevozchikov that are equal in status. Egor Sorin will carry on on leading the fourth group that is often seen as a sort of a farm-club but only because the average age of his skiers is lower than the rest. There is no official division on A and B teams.

Each coach leads the team of specialists including at least one junior trainer, analyst, doctor, massage therapist, technicians etc. That makes each training group bigger in size than most of the other countries’ national teams

The groups are fixed for the season, they train separately and only meet a couple of times on all-hands-on-deck meet-ups that are traditional held in Otepää, Estonia in the summer and Ramsau, Austria right before the season kick-off.

Athletes switching groups, once they are determined and announced, is an extremely rare occurrence.

A total of 40 athletes ( that’s excluding Juniors) will wear national colors. Norway’ s Elite groups ( Ladies, Men’s Sprint and Men’s distance) have 24 athletes between them plus there are 11 skies in Rekrutt i.e. B-Team). Other national teams don’t get even close in numbers.

“Cramer’s Group” ( 12 athletes, mixed gender)

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Sergei Ustiugov, Evgeny Belov, Gleb Retivykh, Andrei Krasnov, Ivan Kirillov, Artyom Maltsev,
Yulia Belorukova, Anna Nechaevskaya, Anastasia Sedova, Alesa Zhambalova, Yana Kirpichenko, Elena Soboleva.

Yuri Borodavko and Natalia Nepryaeva

” Borodavko’s Team” ( 9 athletes, mixed gender)
Natalia Nepryaeva, Lidia Durkina, Anna Zherebyateva, Maria Istomina
Alexander Bolshunov, Andrei Sobakarev, Denis Spitsov, Alexei Chervotkin, Alexander Terentiev

Oleg Perevozchikov ( L) and head of Team Russia waxers Urmas Vyalbe after Holmenkollen 50k race where the Russians took four top spots at the finish.

“Perevozchikov’s Unit” ( 9 athletes, men only)
Alexander Bessmertnykh, Andrei Larkov, Andrei Melnichenko, Iluya Semikov, Sergei Ardashev, Ivan Yakimushkin, Kirill Kilivnyuk, Anton Timashov, Yaroslav Rybochkin

Egor Sorin and his charges during autumn camp in Ramsau

“Sorin’s Club” ( 10 athlets, mixed gender)
Tatyana Aleshina, Aida Bayazitova, Hristina Matsokina, Anna Grukhvina, Yekaterina Smirnova, Olga Kucheruk.
Ilya Poroshkin, Vladislav Vechkanov, Denis Filimonov, Ivan Gorbunov,