OBERHOF – Slovak biathletes Anastasia Kuzminová and Mária Remeňová won places for the February Winter Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Veteran Kuzminová secured it with Thursday’s 20th place in the sprint of the 4th round of the World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. Twenty-five-year-old Remeňová has secured it through an internal battle, which is evaluated according to the average of the IBU qualification points from the three best results in the selected races.
The information was provided by the website slovenskybiatlon.sk.
Slovak women already have four places after last season, the first was won by Bornand Fialková with excellent results in Le Grand. Since it is a criterion for the top 30 Olympic place in the SP race, Kuzminová got the second position.
If Slovakia does not have four competitors with a result in the top 30, the next criterion for Olympic participation is the average of the IBU qualification points from the three best results that the competitors collect in the speed and endurance races of the World Cup to and including Ruhpolding.
There the order is as follows (the lower the value, the better the performance) – Mária Remeňová (84.65), Ema Kapustová (86.13), Zuzana Remeňová (108.89). Kapustová will no longer start in Ruhpolding, so she cannot change her points value. Since Mária Remeňová has better points, she automatically gets third place at the Olympics.
For Bátovská Fialková, it will be the fourth Olympic Games after Sochi, Pyeongchang and Beijing. Her best results are two fifth places from the 15 kilometer race and relays in the Republic of Korea.
Kuzminová will also attend her fourth Games, having held her premiere in Vancouver 2010 and is among the most decorated Slovak Olympians with two gold medals in the sprint (2010, 2014), one in the mass start race (2018) and silver medals in the pursuit (2010, 2018) and the 15 kilometer race (2018).
- Author: © List/
- Source: TASR
