Israel’s Bykanov comes up short on the skate track
Speed skater came to a disappointing end Tuesday when he failed to progress to the quarterfinals of the 500-meter short track event in Sochi
By ALLON SINAIISRAELI SKATER Vladislav Bykanov (right) leads early on in his heat.(photo credit: REUTERS)
Vladislav Bykanov’s Winter Olympics came to a disappointing end on Tuesday afternoon when he failed to progress to the quarterfinals of the 500-meter short track speed skating event in Sochi.The 24-year-old, who moved to Israel from Ukraine in 1994, clocked a time of 41.769 seconds in the first heat of the day, but only finished in third place.The Israeli never really came close to threatening the two qualifiers for the quarterfinals, Se Yeong Park of South Korea and Satoshi Sakashita of Japan.Bykanov was expected to at least progress through one round of competition in all three of his events, but he fell short in the 500m, 1,000m and 1,500m heats.The closest he came was in the 1,500m race when he missed out on a place in the semifinals by 76 hundredths of a second.The fifth and final Israeli to compete in the Olympics will be skier Virgile Vandeput.He will take part in the giant slalom on Wednesday before also skiing the slalom on Saturday, the day before the closing ceremony.Vandeput is hoping to finish in the top half in both events.Israel’s three other representatives competed in the first week of action in Sochi.Alexei Bychenko ended the men’s figure skating event in 21st place on Friday, with Evgeni Krasnopolski and Andrea Davidovich the first Israelis to return from Sochi after ending the pairs figure skating competition in 15th place last Wednesday.
