Preuss from 32 to eight
Franziska Preuss made the sentence of the day: She went from 32nd to 8th place. “The zero series in competition is always something special. Considering that I often quarrel with myself at the shooting range, it went really well,” said Preuss, who was the second best DSV athlete.
Vanessa Voigt was also in the lead group after 15 hits up to the last standing stage, but shot herself out with two penalties and ended up in eleventh place. Franziska Hildebrand (1 mistake) improved from 28th place to 17th place. Janina Hettich, who was free of mistakes, also made significant progress. Started 40th, finished 27th.
Eckhoff passes the first shooting
Sprint winner Herrmann started five seconds ahead of Stina Nilsson and Ekchoff, but lost the lead at the first shooting stage because a shot missed the target by a hair’s breadth. In contrast, Eckhoff shot clean and took the lead, 22.9 seconds ahead of Herrmann. Vanessa Voigt also cleared all the discs and thus moved up to fourth place.
Eckhoff also shot clean in the second prone stage and maintained her top position. Behind him, Herrmann didn’t let himself be deterred, cleared the field and took up the pursuit alone (+ 21.3 seconds) because Stina Nilsson had to go on the lap again. Voigt also hit all the targets again, but shot extremely carefully and was overtaken at the shooting range by Anais Chevalier-Bouchet (France). The Thuringian returned to the track in fourth place.
Eckhoff: 15 shots, 15 hits
Eckhoff ran a good 20 seconds ahead of her pursuers and was still enthroned in the lead after the third shooting. The Norwegian shot like clockwork and didn’t give the competition a chance: Herrmann had to go around once and started chasing together with Chevalier-Bouchet. The gap: around 44 seconds to Eckhoff.
Like Eckhoff, Voigt also remained flawless, but was not quite as light-footed as the Norwegian in fresh snow and ended up in fifth place.
Eckhoff opens the door with two mistakes
On the way to the fourth shooting Herrmann pushed the tube and ran in all-or-nothing mode, but Eckhoff didn’t “loaf” either and kept the competition at a clear distance. She brought a lead of almost 45 seconds to the final standing stage. Herrmann had to hope for mistakes – and in fact Eckhoff missed two targets. So the chance was there. Individual Olympic champion Herrmann didn’t grab it, because a disc didn’t want to fall and the victory was gone.
Source: sst