Doll: “Finally the zero”
Benedikt Doll came closest to his best time. The 31-year-old made no mistakes in both prone and standing shooting and was on a par for a long time on the cross-country ski run. Doll only had to give up on the last section. At the finish he was 7.2 seconds behind the winner, but the “2” lit up for him.
“In terms of running things went really well. I went full throttle into the race. I only had to bite out at the back.”said Doll im ZDF. “But finally the ‘zero’ was there. The last time I can remember it was the 2017 World Cup in Hochfilzen. “
Lesser is happy for Doll and for himself
Erik Lesser is also strong: with just one shooting error and a decent running time, the veteran in the DSV team secured sixth place (+ 43.3 seconds) – like Doll, it was his best performance of the season and double reason to be happy: “Benni is tearing off the zero today. You can also be happy for your colleague.”, says Lesser.
But the 33-year-old, who is one of five DSV athletes qualified for the Olympics, was also satisfied with his own performance, if not entirely: “I built on the mileage of the last week, it was also fun again to plague myself properly. The one mistake while shooting still annoys me, otherwise it would have been more possible”, he said.
Zobel surprises with rank 24
Roman Rees (1 / + 1: 04.2 minutes) was 20th and could not repeat his top placements this winter. For that he would also have needed a flawless shooting, which he did not succeed: “Fifth and sixth are not the benchmark, that was two mega-races. But today I’m not satisfied. I had made up my mind to score ‘zero’, it didn’t work out.”
The penultimate shot did not hit the target with David Zobel either. The 25-year-old, who had recommended himself for the first group via the IBU Cup and who replaced Johannes Kühn (positive corona test), showed no nervousness and came in a strong 24th place. He was clearly better placed than Philipp Nawrath (41./3 shooting errors) and Philipp Horn (59./2).
Status: 01/13/2022, 3:52 p.m.