TYUMEN, Apr 2 The first team of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (KhMAO) won the women's relay race at the Russian Biathlon Championship in Tyumen. The first team of KhMAO, which was represented by Elizaveta Kaplina, Ekaterina Noskova, Vladislava Gavrilova and Kristina Reztsova, showed a time of 1 hour 13 minutes 42.4 seconds, did not enter a single penalty loop and used 12 additional cartridges. Second place was taken by biathletes from the Sverdlovsk region team (Svetlana Mironova, Olga Moshchenkova, Irina Kazakevich and Tamara Derbusheva), losing 44.3 seconds (1 penalty loop + 8 additional cartridges). The team of the Siberian and Far Eastern Federal Districts (+2.47.4, 0+6), for which Sofya Lenkova, Anastasia Grishina, Anastasia Batmanova and Anna Nikulina ran, won bronze medals. Belarusian athletes Anna Sola, Irina Leshchenko, Yulia also took part in the relay. Kovalevskaya and Darya Kudaeva, who finished the race in seventh place (+4.55.1; 3+12). The men's mass start will take place later on Saturday, the Russian championship will end on April 4. Earlier, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) suspended Russian and Belarusian athletes from their competitions against the backdrop of the situation in Ukraine, on Tuesday the IBU suspended the membership of the Russian Biathlon Union and the Belarusian Biathlon Federation.
