Norway’s top biathlete from last season, Maren Hjelmeset Kirkeeide, celebrated her first sense of success at the “Sesongstart” in her home country. However, her victory in the sprint was extremely close. Top athlete Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold ended up outside the top 10.
The Norwegian biathlete Maren Hjelmeset Kirkeeide won the sprint at the traditional “Sesongstart” in Geilo on Saturday. The tenth place finisher in the last overall World Cup won despite making one shooting error while standing and lying down, ahead of her compatriot Marit Öygard.
The 22-year-old’s lead was only very thin: Kirkeeide, who has already secured her World Cup ticket to the start in Östersund (November 29th), completed the two laps just 0.3 seconds faster than her opponent, who got through without any shooting errors. How close the top athletes were to each other is also shown by the third place, which went to Lotte Lien, who was competing for Belgium. She was 0.5 seconds behind the winner.
Meanwhile, Norway’s problem child Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold was unable to achieve a good result. After two errors in the prone position, the experienced ski hunter crossed the finish line 39 seconds behind and only took 15th place.
Biathlon star Wierer misses top result
The 29-year-old recently received a ticket from her association for the World Cup opener in Sweden, even though she did not meet the qualification criteria. She was rewarded for her “extraordinary results” in the past. Tandrevold had heart surgery at the beginning of last season and struggled to stay in the fold after her comeback. She didn’t really get going during the summer preparation.
Meanwhile, two foreign biathletes, Anastasia Kuzmina from Slovakia and Dorothea Wierer from Italy, were able to build up their self-confidence. Kuzmina finished in fifth place without making any mistakes, Wierer missed a top result in the prone position when she missed three targets.