Anastasia Kuzmina: “I want to win an Olympic medal again”

by Luis Mahlknecht Antholz is traditionally very busy in the summer months. The person responsible for the biathlon stadium, Andreas Egger, points out the many teams and individual athletes who train at the facility. In the second half of June, double Olympic champion Anastasia Kuzmina could also be found in the “Südtirol Arena”, where, in addition to hot training sessions, she also found time for a chat.

Her Olympic gold medals from 2010 in Vancouver and 2014 in Sochi are biathlon history, but the native Russian is already fully focused on the next Olympic Games: “I want to be strong enough in February 2018 to be able to win an Olympic medal again,” says Nastija is very open when she completes a more than three-hour training session with shooting and countless laps on the scooter track.

At almost 33 years old, the biathlete is no longer the youngest in the field, and she knows it: “I now need more time to regenerate, and athletes of the new generation like Laura Dahlmeier are probably ahead of me. But I want to build up my entire training in a targeted manner, and I find Antholz ideal for that. The training options in the stadium, the beautiful scooter track, then the hiking and cycling opportunities away from the biathlon facility, plus the peace and tranquility in the evenings by the lake - all of this makes Antholz an ideal training center where I can prepare well and then let my mind unwind can."

Her husband Daniel is also on board with the “Kuzmina team” as a coach, as well as the physiotherapist Samuel and the former youth medalist Natalia Prekopova, who has been highly recommended as a “girl for everything”. And their soon-to-be 10-year-old son Elisey is also there, while daughter Olivia (turning 2 in the summer) stayed at home with grandpa and grandma.

Pregnancy in particular marked a significant point in Nastija's career. As Anastasia Shipulina, the biathlete belonged to an outstanding generation who was able to compete on equal terms with a Magdalena Neuner or a Darya Domrachewa. When Shipulina realized that she was pregnant and started to slow down. To withdraw from top-class sport, they made short work of her in Russia and removed her from all squads. The statement at the time: “We have enough other good athletes.”

But Nastija fought back, came back into the biathlon business with the new surname Kuzmina and under the Slovakian flag - and was successful.

“The gold medal in the 2010 Olympic sprint was probably the most sensational thing I have achieved in my life,” smiles the neo-Slovakian. As a reminder: Less than 6 weeks before the Olympics, she broke her left hand in a fall during training. From then on she only had to push with a stick and only very slowly rehearse the usual routines. But her big moment came in Vancouver when she relegated Magdalena Neuner and Marie Dorin to the places of honor. A success that was to be repeated in Sochi in 2014. Back in the Olympic sprint...

In between, Nastija Kuzmina also made people sit up and take notice in the World Cup. In Antholz, for example, she won the 2013 World Cup sprint and was also on the podium two more times. This is also a reason why the woman from Siberia likes to return to Antholz.

Anastasia Kuzmina sees herself as an “oldie” in the biathlon panorama, but doesn’t want to think about quitting: “Now the focus is on the Olympics. Then we'll see. Of course, my priorities have shifted since I became a mother, and I also want to be a good mom to little Olivia. But on the other hand, biathlon is like a drug for me, without which I perhaps cannot live.” So much so that she can well imagine passing on her experiences to younger athletes.

The fact that as a mother she now thinks differently than those athletes who carelessly go from competition location to competition location without a family is also reflected in the friendships that Nastija maintains. “I talk a lot with other athletes who are also moms, especially recently with Darya Domrachewa. But you have to keep in mind that we discuss a lot of personal things over the course of the season. Most of the time you are very focused on the competitions and sometimes you are quite determined. It's only towards the end of the season - around March - that you have more time for fun and relaxation. But it's also important to be fully concentrated throughout the season," says Kuzmina. That's why she wants to be involved in the World Cup right from the start. "If you only compete every now and then, you're not hot enough. Man Loses the tension, and tension is certainly beneficial in this business, even if it gets harder for me every year.”

But “Nastija” still has a big goal in mind - and that is Pyeongchang 2018. The Slovakian would also like to complete her final preparation, her finishing touches, in Antholz. In the place she loves most in the global biathlon panorama.

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Anastasia Kuzmina: “I want to win an Olympic medal again”

She was the only athlete to repeat her success in the biathlon sprint competition at the Olympic Games: Anastasia Kuzmina (formerly Shipulina) achieved this feat. And she's already thinking about South Korea 2018. She completed part of her preparation in Antholz.

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