Ethnic Kazakh woman Alimbekova enchants for Belarus: in 2018 she became the youngest Olympic champion in biathlon, and in Beijing she missed gold due to an unsuccessful shot – 11.02.2022
A native of Kazakhstan Dinara Alimbekova at the Olympics for the national team of Belarus. The athlete has all the chances for a medal in Beijing, but so far she is disappointingly different in the individual race (and even burst into tears at the finish line). The story of the story of a Kazakh woman with Belarusian roots.
Dinara was born in the Karaganda region, in the small town of Abay. The father of the athlete has an international family: her mother is Kazakh, her mother is Belarusian. When Dinara was three years old, the family moved to Belarus. The Alimbekovs settled in the town of Chausy. The girl did not immediately go to biathlon: as a child, she was fond of dancing and music, later she went in for skiing. A hectic schedule does not call for a combination of art and sport, and Dinara pursues her choice of skiing. A year later, the athlete discovered biathlon.
Already at the age of 15, a native of Kazakhstan made her debut at international competitions: the rivals were twenty-year-old girls, but the young biathlete managed to achieve success with the team of 11th place in the relay. A year later, the athlete began to compete in adult biathlon in the IBU Cup. The first high-profile success came in 2015: at the World Junior Championships in the relay with Anna Sola and Daria Blashko, Alimbekova won gold. However, the following year, the athlete stopped the head injury, and the next year the athlete was not in the most suitable shape.
In 2017, Dinara at the Summer Junior Biathlon World Championships won the silver medal in the sprint and the bronze medal in the mixed relay.
The games in Pyeongchang-2018 were not very successful for Alimbekova: in the individual race for 15 kilometers, she became only 56th. Before the relay, the coaching staff could not decide on the fourth athlete for a long time (Daria Domracheva, Irina Krivko and Nadezhda Skardino had definitely already participated): they chose between Alimbekova and Nadezhda Pisareva. In the end, Diana came to the start.
Alimbekova caused more: in Pyeongchang, she gave the race of life, leading the team to second place. Until this exceptional moment, Belarusian athletes were fourth and lagged behind rivals by 17.1 seconds. The legend of the Belarusian national team Domracheva in the end formalized the triumphant victory of the team, and Alimbekova became the youngest Olympic champion in the history of biathlon.
After the finish, the coach of the Belarusian national team Alfred Eder noted that the decision to put Alimbekova in the team’s starting lineup was not an easy one. “A very difficult decision is to replace Pisareva with Alimbekova. Difficult for us, difficult for Nadezhda. But if we won, then we did everything right.”
Dinara herself did not hold back her emotions. “What could be better than an Olympic medal? It was a joy for me to just be here. I thought that at the Games I would gain experience. There were no thoughts about any records and medals. He just showed himself and realized that he had come for a reason. Not a steam locomotive.”
After the success at the Olympics, real fame fell to Dinara: President Alexander Lukashenko jokingly created a biathlete in training.
“I told Dinara that the pre-season would train with me. I will prepare an ax for her, a scythe to load the shoulder girdle, and the heaviest rollerskis. I have a president, these are steep mountains, so we will walk in the mountains, ”he mocked on the air of Belarusian TV.
Against the background of the victory of the biathlete, rumors appeared about a possible performance for the national team of Kazakhstan. All the rumors about Dinara’s possible move were answered by the athlete’s mother.
– A couple of years ago, the coach of the Kazakhstan national team, Mikhail Dudchenko, said that Dinara was thinking about what kind of warrior for the national team.
— Horror what! The first time I’ve heard. It is not true. On the contrary, she was once asked such a question and she used it unequivocally that she did not even want to think about it. He considers himself a Belarusian and the public for his country. There were no offers, no such conversations. Still, Belarus is her homeland. She may have been born elsewhere, but she grew up here. This is her country.
Because of the upcoming one and a half seasons, it turned out ugly. Having improved her health, Alimbekova began to show results at the beginning of 2020. At the next stage of the World Cup in Austrian Hochfilzen, Alimbekova won gold in the sprint and took silver in the sharpening race. Immediately after that, there was talk about the possible use of doping by the athlete.
“Doping? I am checked at every event, so far there have been no questions. I don’t know, if someone wants to make sure of me, they can come to the room and see if I eat anything forbidden there, ”Alimbekova commented on all the rumors.
Since then, Alimbekova regularly gets into the top three: now the athlete has 6 prizes at the World Cups (1-4-1). In the overall standings of the Dinara Cup, the second after Zhirki Marte Ulsby-Røiseland.
Already as a well-deserved leader of the biathlete team, she went to the Olympics in Beijing. However, so far without medals: Dinara, Anna Sola, Nikita Lobastov and Anton Smolsky took sixth place in the mixed relay. In the individual race, Alimbekova had every chance for gold until the very end, but due to a miss at the last stage, he came to the finish line only fifth. After the offensive finish, the athlete did not notice the tears:
“Now I don’t feel anything but frustration and annoyance. I don’t feel any emotions. I’m cold and tired. I could… I think I was a little too hasty with that shot. All the shots were made successfully, with high quality, namely, with a miss shot, I hurried a little, probably lost my savings, ”Alimbekova told reporters.
However, the games in Beijing are in full swing, and the native of Kazakhstan still has a chance for a medal.
Dmitry Klimentiev