Zhangjiakou (dpa) – The German biathlon men were also unable to intervene in the awarding of medals in the pursuit of the Olympic Winter Games in China. Roman Rees still finished sixth in Sunday’s victory of Frenchman Quentin Fillon Maillet.
Denise Herrmann’s individual gold remains the only medal for the German team so far before the relays and the mass start races in the last week of the Olympics.
Behind Fillon Maillet, who triumphed as in the individual after 12.5 kilometers in 39:07.5 minutes, Norway’s Tarjei Bö followed 28.6 seconds behind Russia’s Eduard Latypow, who was 35.3 seconds behind.
Rees crossed the finish line, 2:30.2 back, despite just one miss. Halfway through the race, Philipp Nawrath with seven and Johannes Kühn with four penalties had no chance of placing in the front. Kühn finished twelfth, Nawrath 19th. Benedikt Doll, eighth in the sprint, disappointed with seven penalties and 32nd place.
Doll, who was still optimistic the day before as a sprint eighth, got off to a bad start in adverse conditions with blowing snow and an icy wind. The first shot while lying down went wide, followed by another, so that Doll immediately got two penalties. Further standing mistakes finally dashed all hopes of winning bronze like four years ago in Pyeongchang.
Rees, who started 17th, overtook him and cleaned the second prone stage to move up to sixth. Due to the deficit from the sprint, bronze was still a good 50 seconds away, and one mistake in the first standing stage was too much. At the very front, sprint Olympic champion Johannes Thingnes Bö made unusual mistakes, not only had to let sprint second Fillon Maillet pass after the first standing stage and fell back to fifth place.