Nikita Kriukov
| Nikita Kriukov | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Full name | Nikita Valeryevich Kriukov |
| Born |
May 30, 1985 Dzerzhinsky, Russia |
| Height | 1.84 m (6 ft 0 in) |
| Ski club | Sdusor 81 |
| World Cup career | |
| Seasons | 2006– |
| Individual wins | 3 |
| Indiv. podiums | 13 |
Nikita Valeryevich Kriukov (Russian: Никита Валерьевич Крюков; born 30 May 1985) is a Russian cross country skier who has competed since 2005. He is a sprint specialist who has won an Olympic Gold and Olympic silver, three World Championship gold medals, six World cup gold medals (three stage races, three individual World Cups), all in the sprint events. He is arguably the fastest skier ever when it comes to double-poling on the flat in sprints. He generally favors classic skiing and classic sprints over freestyle, but as he showed in winning the team sprint in the 2013 World Championship, in Val di Fiemme, he is also very strong in the freestyle sprint.
The highlights of his career were at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics where he beat his teammate from behind with a late closing sprint, in a photo finish that took minutes to determine. And at the 2013 World Championships where he won golds in both the individual classic sprint and the team freestyle sprint. A late fall by another team that impeded his closing 200 metres likely cost him a 2nd Olympic Gold in the Team Sprint in Sochi where he took silver.
He plans the 2018 Olympics to be his final major event appearance.
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