Up Close & Personal With Yelena Vyalbe: Part II

Up Close & Personal With Yelena Vyalbe: Part II

Leaders, Newsfeed
Part 2. Past and present. And a bit about future too. How would you compare Team Russia at the Olympics in Sochi in 2014 and in Pyeongchang-2018? Well, we failed in Sochi . Despite memorable victory at 50k. ( Russia's 1-2-3 on the podium) The fate was against us - Ustiugoiv fall, sprint relay collision, broken poles etc. - but one can't blame the fate only. Our women failed miserably and yes, I was calling them «Tumbochka” ( literally - “nightstand”, implying that somebody's heavy, overweight, unwieldy) publicly – and much worse in the locker room. Did we play unfair in Sochi? There was no “state sponsored” or any other doping in our team – period, but we did use “legally permitted tricks” such as extending last stretch on sprints…
Read More
Up Close & Personal With Yelena Vyalbe: Part I

Up Close & Personal With Yelena Vyalbe: Part I

Newsfeed
...as previously explained, we here at the DailySkier are not huge fans of loooong interviews and thus nearly always making a conscious decision to split them into 2-3 parts, depending on the original length of conversation. Today, in Part 1 Yelena Vyalbe, head of the Russian XCSki Federation and manager of Team Russia ( yes, she sits on two chairs, so to speak) talks about disqualifications of the Russian skiers , relationship with sponsors and touches upon the recent Olympics ( more on that in Part 2) ... Says Vyalbe: ...I have had very mixed feelings throughout the Olympics. Was happy for our youngsters were performing so well yet I felt bad for the guys who were not allowed to the Games – especially for ( Sergey) Ustiugov and (…
Read More
Coming Up: Up Close & Personal With Yelena Vyalbe

Coming Up: Up Close & Personal With Yelena Vyalbe

Leaders, Newsfeed
It's hard to find a more recognizable figure in the “paddocks” of any international cross-country skiing competition than that of Yelena Vyalbe. To get the idea of how impportant that athlete & manager is to modern skiing we would have to remind you about her - truly milestone - achievements - Career 81 FIS Cross-Country World Cup podiums - 2d only to Marit Bjorgen - Of which 45 wins - only tBojorgen and  Bjørn Dæhlie won more times - Five overall crystal globes of World Cup winner. Triple Olympic champion and 14 ( that's 14, folks!) times world champ. In 1997 in Trondheim won 5 golds in all 5 races she took part in. - president of the Russian Cross-Country Ski Association since 2010 - manager of the Russian cross-country team…
Read More