MOSCOW, Oct 20, Anatoly Samokhvalov. Three-time Olympic champion in cross-country skiing Alexander Bolshunov deserves the title of the best athlete of the 2022 Games more than the Olympic champion in short track Korean Hwang Dae Hong, said the 2014 Olympic champion in short track Semyon Elistratov. The Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) recognized Hwang Dae Hong as the best athlete of the 2022 Olympics , who won the 1500m and took silver in the relay.» Sincere congratulations to Hwang Dae Hong on his victory. I ran with him in that final race in Beijing that he won. He absolutely deserved to win gold. The question here is for ANOC itself. I , to be honest, I didn’t even know about its existence. The question is to the organization: according to what sports criteria do they choose the best athlete? If we take the sports principle, then Sasha Bolshunov, of course, deserves this recognition more. Sasha had in Beijing five medals, Hwang has two. Sasha has three gold medals, Hwang has one,” said Yelistratov, who won the gold of the Sochi Games and two bronze medals of Pyeongchang 2018 and Beijing 2022. At the Beijing Games, Bolshunov won the skiathlon, the 4×10 km relay and the mass start, won a silver medal in the 15 km time trial and a bronze in the team sprint.He became the seventh representative of cross-country skiing with five medals in one Olympics, but the first man.
