Sergey Ustiugov

Early career

Sergey Ustiugov started doing cross-country skiing in the biathlon section of the sports school of the settlement Mezhdurechensky in 2001. His main coach was Ivan Gennadievich Vragin.

In 2011, Ustiugov won gold in sprint at the Youth World Championships in cross-country skiing in Otepää, Estonia. A year later he became four-times champion of the Youth Championships in Erzurum, Turkey. There he won gold in sprint, 10 km race, skiatlon and as part of the Russian team in the relay event. In 2013, he participated at the Junior Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic in the Under-23 classification, winning there two gold medals in 15 km free style and 30 km skiatlon. At the Junior Championships in Val di Fiemme in 2014 he won gold in individual sprint.

2011–15: World Cup debut and new coaching staff

Ustiugov debuted on 6 February 2011 at the World Cup in the relay event. Overall he reached 22 times the pedestal in World Cup individual events; nine times he championed, six times he became runner-up and seven times he was third-placed. The best overall ranking to date was 4th place in the 2015–16 season.

At the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2013 in Vale di Flemme, Ustiugov with his relay team won bronze. In the individual 15 km free style race he became 47th. In the same year he reached a podium place for the first time in Davos on 15 December, getting third in free style sprint. The next month he won a stage in the Czech Nové Město in free style sprint. He debuted at the 2014 Winter Olympics in sprint, where he became fifth after falling down near the final passage. In May 2014, Ustiugov moved to a separate group of the national team headed by the Swiss-German duo Reto Burgermeister/Isabel Knaute and so left the group headed by Oleg Perevozchikov.

2015–: Tour de Ski champion, World champion

In the 2015–16 WC season, in January 2015, he won the team sprint event with Alexey Petukhov at an World Cup stage in Otepää. In Rybinsk he became runner-up in free style sprint and third in individual 15 km free style. He participated at the 2016 Tour de Ski, reaching third place overall. In the Nove Mesto stage he won silver and bronze in 15 km free style event and relay event, subsequently. In February he won the mass start 15 km free style event in Swedish Falun. At the season-ending Ski Tour Canada he became 2nd overall, reaching five times the pedestal.

In October, Ustyugov and other skiers including Evgeny Belov and Stanislav Volzhentsev got into a conflict with the Swiss-German coaching duo Burgermeister-Knaute, and so President of the Russian Federation of Cross-Country Skiing and main coach of the national Russian team Elena Vyalbe allowed to switch Ustiugov the coaching group; the new coach became German Markus Kramer, who also coached 2014 Olympic Champion Alexander Legkov and other sportsmen.

In the new season, Ustiugov in January won the 2016-17 Tour de Ski. He won the first five stages and only in the 6th stage he lost the crown to Martin Sundby. In the last stage, the final climb, he started first and by saving the handycap won the overall tour. He was the second Russian after Legkov to win the Tour de Ski. Ustiugov also set a record for the most wins in succession (5). Before him, the record were four winning stages in a row, set by Sundby.

At the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2017 he started by winning silver medal in the sprint competition. Then he went on winning his first ever gold medal at the Championships in 30 km skiathlon. With Nikita Kriukov he won his second gold medal in team sprint.

Personal life

Sergey Ustiugov was born in Mezhdurechensky as one of the youngest children in a large family; he is of Mansi descent. He has a girlfriend, cross-country skier Elena Soboleva, with whom he is regularly meeting.

World Cup results

All results are sourced from the International Ski Federation (FIS).

Individual podiums

World Championship results