Belarusian among world skiing leaders
He was taken in the team by chance, only to fill the fourth position in the relay race. This boy outran such masters of skiing as Angerer from Germany and Bjorndalen form Norway. Now the whole world is trying to understand the Belarusian phenomenon.
The European Radio for Belarus has decided to help our listeners in the identification of the hero. Leanid has been training in Minsk for only 4 months while his home town is Klimavichy. But he decided to avoid the fate of drinking spirits produced by Klimavichy alcoholic beverage plant all his life.
His skiing career started rather late – when he was 14. His coach Dzmіtryi Prayavenka told us:
"He was born into a not very good family. Leanid’s mother brought him up. There were many children in his family. That was one of the reasons why his Klimavichy coach advised that he should continue training in Mahileu. It turned out that Leanid never had a father”.
Mahileu Olympic Reserve College became Leanid’s first educational institution. Dzіtryi Prayavenka continues the talk about his pupil:
"Leanid experienced the system of team training: my son and me are training him. I trained him during his school years and my son started to train him when Leanid became a first year student and later. Leanid had a disposition for skiing from the start. His results were getting better, of course.
We are preparing him for the world junior championship that is to take place in March. I’d like to mention one thing: he is a very purposeful guy. He has already had his own point of view and has always been ready to stand up for it.
Interestingly, Karnyaenka is not even the best Belarusian skier. He was 30th the last national championship. His coaches thought he would be 30th in Japan too. The deputy head of Minsk School of High Sports Mastery Natallya Burlakova says:
He is a very kind, young and promising guy. Of course we believe in him. Everything is before him. He is a good skier. He always participates in some periodical training and it’s hard to find him here.
Such a result for the first time! Our adult sportsman Dalidovich will not be able to do it and… We had been planning to see him in top 30. Of course he is a very good sportsman but we couldn’t imagine he would be so successful”.
Leanіd Karnyaenka was a member of the President’s team in “Minsk skiing 2006”. He would participate in it this year too but the competition was cancelled because of sharp frost.
The head coach of the national team Vadzіm Sashuryn says they took Karnyaenka to the championship only to fill the fourth position in the relay race.
In spite of the fact that Leanid failed to go to the first distance (30 km duathlon), he did his best in the 15 km race and won the silver medal.
But how did professional skiers assess the victory of our compatriot? A Russian skier Sergey Shiryaev, who was considered to be a candidate for a medal, thinks that Karnyaenka’s victory was fantastic, because such things (when an unknown skier wins a medal) never happened before.
Rejoicing with you at the young Belarusian’s success - Zmіtser Trauchuk.
On the photo - Leanіd Karnyaenka —first one on the left.
