At the end of the Biathlon World Cup in Oberhof, three French people cheered. Dominator Bö, on the other hand, had to settle for 13th place, the Germans were far behind.
There was no way around them in the Thuringian Forest: Quentin Fillon Maillet (0 errors, 23:36.2 minutes), Fabien Claude (0 errors, + 14.9 seconds) and Emilien Jacquelin (1 error / +22.1 seconds) caused a French festival in the 10 kilometer sprint and even overshadowed the dominator of the season, Johannes Thingnes Bö (3 errors, +58.1 seconds). The Norwegian Bö ended up 13th.
DSV team: Poor starting position for persecution
The German team also had no chance against the French due to their poor performance on the shooting range. In total, the six athletes made 17 errors at the shooting range: Justus Strelow was the best DSV athlete in 18th place (1 error, +1:12.9 minutes). Strelow started the race strong, made no mistakes at the first stop at the shooting range, but then made a mistake and had to go into the penalty loop. Philipp Nawrath also only managed 27th place after a total of three errors (+1:29.8 minutes). “Maybe we hoped for too much. That threw me off a bit”admitted Nawrath. He now wants it for his pursuer “Put everything in and get better at shooting.”
At his first World Cup in front of a home crowd, Danilo Riethmüller was unable to build on his recent good form and second place in the mass start in Annecy. He also made a mistake at the shooting range and had to settle for 31st place after three mistakes (+1:36.2 minutes).
Kühn: “Shooting so-so”
Johannes Kühn (33rd/2), Simon Kaiser (46th/4) and Philipp Horn (44th/4) also clearly missed top 25 placements. The prospects for the 12.5 km pursuit on Saturday are correspondingly poor. Little consolation: All German athletes were able to qualify for the hunting race.
Johannes Kühn summarized his race like this: “Shooting so-so, running okay, placement poor” – an analysis that was true for the entire DSV team on this sobering afternoon.
German biathletes are waiting for further top placings
The DSV team still has to wait for the big breakthrough this season. So far, only Philipp Nawrath and Danilo Riethmüller had each achieved a podium finish: Nawrath came third in the first sprint of the season in Kontiolahti, Finland, and Riethmüller then took second place in the mass start in Annecy.
At least there was no rain in Oberhof on Friday. On Thursday the biathletes struggled with the soft snow in the pouring rain. Preuß commented on the difficult conditions after what was a disappointing day from a German perspective.