Pavel Alexandrovich Kulischnikow

Pavel Kulischnikow
Full name	Pavel Alexandrovich Kulischnikow
nation	Russia
birthday	20th April 1994 (age 26)
place of birth	Vorkuta ,  Russia
size	185 cm
Career
discipline	500 m, 1000 m
Trainer	Dmitri Dementjew / Rostislaw Podgaiski (youth) Dmitri Dorofeev
status	active
Medal table
World Cup medals 8 × 1 × 1 ×
Sprint World Championships gold 2015 Astana sprint gold 2016 Seoul sprint gold 2019 Heerenveen sprint  Individual distance world championships gold 2015 Heerenveen 2 × 500 m silver 2015 Heerenveen 1000 m gold 2016 Kolomna 2 × 500 m gold 2016 Kolomna 1000 m bronze 2019 Inzell Team sprint gold 2020 Salt Lake City 500 m gold 2020 Salt Lake City 1000 m  European championships gold 2018 Kolomna 1000 m gold 2018 Kolomna Team sprint bronze 2018 Kolomna 500 m gold 2020 Heerenveen 1000 m gold 2020 Heerenveen Team sprint gold 2020 Heerenveen 500 m
Placements in the speed skating world cup
Debut in the World Cup November 14, 2014  World Cup victories 37  Grand toilet 1. ( 2014/15 )  Total toilet 500 1. ( 2014/15 , 2015/16 , 2018/19 )  Total toilet 1000 1. ( 2014/15 )
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  500 meters 24 6th 2  1000 meters 12 5 3  Team competition 1 0 0
last change: February 19, 2020

Pawel Alexandrowitsch Kulischnikow ( Russian Павел Александрович Кулижников ; born April 20, 1994 in Vorkuta ) is a Russian speed skater who specializes in sprint routes and is multiple world champion. After a two-year doping ban, he made his debut in the speed skating World Cup in November 2014 and was able to conclude his first World Cup season as the winner of the overall standings and his two discipline ratings. So far he has fought for 31 daily victories in the highest racing series. At the age of 20, Kulischnikow is also the youngest sprint world champion since Eric Heiden's title in 1977.

Kulischnikow names the Canadian Jeremy Wotherspoon as his sporting idol .

Athletic career

Beginnings in the junior sector

At the age of six, Kulischnikow and his family moved from the far north of Russia around 1900 kilometers southwest to Kolomna , in Moscow Oblast . There he began speed skating at the age of twelve. His first coaches were Rostislaw Podgaiski and Dimitri Dementjew. He was considered a promising talent from an early age and was even traded as a child prodigy . He made his first international appearance in mid-March 2010 at the Junior World Championships in Moscow . There he only reached twelfth place over 1000 meters, 17th place over 2 × 500 meters and 25th place over 1500 meters. In the same year he won the silver medal in the team race at the Russian championships. As part of the Junior World Cup, in November 2010 in the Polish city ​​of Zakopane , he secured victories in both races over 500 meters. In 2011 he achieved bronze in the combined sprint of the national competitions. The 2011/2012 Junior World Cup season was much more successful, in which he was able to run a total of four daily victories: In November 2011 in Erfurt and Bjugn each over 1500 meters, and in January 2012 in Klobenstein both over 500 and 1000 meters.

As a result, Kulischnikow then experienced his apparent breakthrough when he secured gold over 1000 meters and third place over 2 × 500 meters at the Junior World Championships in Obihiro, Japan in early March 2012 . Subsequently, however, a routine doping test showed him increased levels of methylhexanamine . Thereupon his results were deleted from the result lists and he himself was banned for two years - until March 2014. As a result, he also missed a possible participation in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi .

As a senior

In 2014 he was Russian champion in the combined sprint and his debut in the speed skating World Cup was made by Kulischnikow at the beginning of the 2014/2015 season on November 14, 2014 in Obihiro of all places . In his very first race, a race over 500 meters, he achieved second place behind Jan Smeekens from the Netherlands and a day later over 1000 meters his first victory. He finished his first World Cup weekend the following day with another victory over 500 meters. Since then, the Russian, previously only known to experts, has dominated these two tracks in the current season and won numerous other races. In February 2015 he sprinted the title over 2 × 500 meters at the individual distance world championships in Heerenveen and only had to admit defeat over 1000 meters to the two-time Olympic champion Shani Davis . Two weeks later, Kulischnikow also won gold at the Sprint World Championship in Astana . He remained successful until the end of the season and also triumphed over 500 meters at the last World Cup station in Erfurt and finished fifth over twice the distance. Due to a shoulder injury, he did without the last 500 meter race. In his first World Cup season, Kulischnikow not only confidently secured the two sprint discipline classifications, but also the Grand World Cup - the overall World Cup.

Kulischnikow managed to maintain his level of performance over the summer break. The start of the 2015/2016 World Cup season was also extremely successful: at the first two stations he won all four races over 500 meters and took first and second place over twice the distance. On November 15, 2015 in Calgary , he undercut the more than eight-year-old best performance of Jeremy Wotherspoon and set a new world record over 500 meters with 00: 34.00 min . Just five days later, he improved his own brand in Salt Lake City by two hundredths of a second. Numerous other daily victories followed before Kulischnikow confidently won the two gold medals over 2 × 500 meters and 1,000 meters at the individual distance world championships in front of his home crowd in Kolomna in February 2016 . In the same month he was able to defend his title from the previous year at the sprint world championship in the South Korean capital Seoul .

In the season 2016/2017 lost a Kulischnikow its dominance. He also missed due to a slight groin injury as well as "mental problems as a result of Meldoniumskandals" participating in all three major championships - the Sprint European Championships in Heerenveen , the Single Distance World Championships in Gangneung and the Sprint World Cup in Calgary - and therefore could gain no further medals. In the following season he was in better shape again, celebrated several World Cup victories and won two gold medals at the first-ever individual distance European championships in Kolomna in January 2018 . Because of his doping past, however, he was excluded from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang , South Korea by the International Olympic Committee .

Possible doping offense as a senior

At the beginning of March 2016, after the A-sample was opened, Kulischnikow was able to prove that he had taken meldonium , which has been on the doping list of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as an illegal substance since January 1, 2016 . The remedy, which is very common in Russia among competitive athletes, improves blood circulation and endurance. He was suspended before the last World Cup station in Heerenveen and after the B-sample on March 18 had the same result, it was discussed whether he should give up his world championship medals. As a repeat offender, he was facing a lifelong ban.

In view of a lack of or insufficient studies on the rate of degradation of meldonium in the human body, the World Anti-Doping Agency granted an amnesty on April 13, 2016 to all those athletes whose samples taken before March 1 found less than one microgram of the substance could be. As a result, the International Skating Union lifted Kulischnikov's provisional ban on April 21.

Personal best

discipline	Time in minutes	date	place	Duration
500 m	00: 33.98	20th November 2015	Salt Lake City	4 years and 286 days
1000 m	01: 06.70	November 21, 2015	Salt Lake City	4 years and 285 days
1500 m	01: 47.26	January 22, 2015	Kolomna	5 years and 223 days
3000 m	03: 56.26	December 11, 2011	Kolomna	8 years and 265 days
5000 m	07: 04.65	4th February 2012	Kolomna	8 years and 210 days
Color legend: Current world record (as of December 4, 2016)
As of December 18, 2018

statistics

Web links

• Official profile of Pawel Kulischnikow on isu.org ( International Ice Skating Union )
• Profile of Pawel Kulischnikow on Speedskatingnews

Individual evidence

1. ↑ World Cup without defending champion Kulischnikow . sportschau.de , January 19, 2017; accessed on February 11, 2017.
2. ↑ Sharapova's doping agent is a hit in Russia . welt.de , March 8, 2016; Retrieved November 19, 2016.
3. ^ Ihle benefits from the Kulischnikow ban . Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 9, 2016, accessed on August 7, 2020 .  .
4. ↑ Lifelong ban threatens: Also B-sample of speed skating world champion Kulischnikow positive . focus.de , March 18, 2016; Retrieved March 19, 2016.