With his first win of the season, Johannes Thingnes Bö made an impressive return to the Biathlon World Cup. The German athletes, on the other hand, did not make it to the top positions.
With his first win of the season, Johannes Thingnes Bö made an impressive return to the Biathlon World Cup. The DSV athletes, however, did not make it to the on Saturday (December 9th, 2023). Top positions. Benedikt Doll was the best German in tenth place.
“I am back. That’s what I love about racing. Closing the gaps, then shaving off a few seconds each time and finally getting back to lane one – that’s really nice, a good feeling“Boe was happy about his winning comeback in the Sportschau interview.
Doll and Kühn start bravely
After four podium finishes in three individual races, the start in Hochfilzen was not a German success story. Accordingly, the DSV starters went into the pursuit with a good backpack. Benedikt Doll started in seventh place, 31.1 seconds behind sprint winner Tarjei Bö, Johannes Kühn in ninth (+40.1 seconds). Otherwise, Justus Strelow was the only German in the top 15 to start, but was already 1:09 minutes behind.
After the disappointment of the previous day, the DSV team started to catch up right from the start. Doll and Kühn joined forces and gained a few seconds on the leading trio Bö, Sturla Holm Laegreid and Sebastian Samuelsson, who had won the first pursuit race in Östersund (Sweden). At the first shooting there was a lot of movement in the field – of the top 10 only two athletes made no mistakes: Laegreid and Kühn. At that moment, the Norwegian was alone in the lead and Kühn was already in fifth place, only 36.4 seconds behind.
Serial winner Bö is chasing the top
However, the 32-year-old’s comeback was over in the second prone stage; he made a mistake in the fifth shot and had to go into the penalty loop. Doll, who missed a target in both stages, also lost touch. Meanwhile, Johannes Thingnes Bö in particular, who was not in the exceptional form of previous years this season, worked his way forward. Halfway through the race, the overall World Cup winner, who started eleventh, was already fifth in four of the past five years and had more than halved his gap from 47.1 to 21 seconds.
Pleasing from a German perspective: David Zobel managed to work his way forward with strong performances in prone shooting. Without making any mistakes, he made it from 26th place on the grid (+1:37.2 minutes) to near the top 10. In the end, Zobel hit the first 18 shots and only made two mistakes at the very end. His comment: “Running great, the first 18 shots were great – it was incredibly exciting, really cool.”
Philipp Nawrath, on the other hand, once again experienced a pitch-black day. After his 34th place in the sprint, he already made four mistakes in the first two shooting stages, meaning the winner of the sprint in Östersund fell even further behind.
Bö reports back, Doll is back in striking distance
At the top, the athletes also continued to make mistakes. And that paved the way for Bö, who made no mistakes in the first standing stage and took the lead. His Norwegian teammate Laegreid was already 7.9 seconds behind, with Emile Jacquelin in third place 19.8 seconds behind. Meanwhile, Doll managed to get close to the podium again, finishing seventh (+26.9 seconds) after a flawless performance. Kühn (11th/+54.4 seconds) and Zobel (again without a mistake) were also well positioned.
Afterwards it was decided to race for victory on the cross-country ski trail. Bö suddenly increased his lead and pulled ahead of his competitors by 20 or more seconds. With another mistake-free shooting, he went into the last lap alone and didn’t let anything go wrong. Bö celebrated his 20th World Cup victory in the pursuit. So far, the Norwegian has only had a third place, otherwise he was 11th, 15th and 18th – now he has made an impressive comeback.
DSV trio fails at the end
However, Doll’s hopes of a podium finish ended in the final shooting, as he made two mistakes. Kühn also made a mistake and fell back, and Zobel also missed his last two attempts of the race. While four Norwegians at the front ran towards the finish, the entire DSV team had nothing to do with the outcome of the race at the front. Doll came tenth, Zobel 14th and Kühn ended up in 18th place. With a strong second half of the race, Nawrath still worked his way up to 22nd place.
“The race was very painful. We had a very special ski, and getting to grips with it took a while. It annoys me that I can’t even close the bag in the last standing stage, but instead stumble again with two mistakes“said Doll in the Sportschau interview.”But I was already very exhausted, it was difficult to shoot. Nevertheless, I want to get it done at some point.“