Sebastian Samuelsson actually wanted to launch his big attack on the overall biathlon World Cup this winter. After an unexpected setback, the issue has almost been settled, as he himself now admitted.
Ninth place in the ranking, already over 200 points behind Johannes Thingnes Bø and hardly any chance of winning the overall World Cup: After a strong start to the season, Sebastian Samuelsson paid a high price for his failure in Lenzerheide. The Swede has (almost) lost sight of his big goal.
“Even if I were to win everything and Johannes Thingnes Bø came second in all the races, I wouldn’t win the overall World Cup,” said Samuelsson in the “SVT” interview, calculating how difficult it would be for him to win the overall ranking. Almost half of the season is already over, complained the Swede: “Having a lot of points now is a big advantage. That’s clear.”
“I tried everything to stay healthy”
His big deficit is mainly due to his failure in Lenzerheide. He missed the races in Switzerland due to a corona infection. “That’s something I can’t change. I tried everything to stay healthy, but unfortunately I still got sick. That’s just the way it is,” he said, looking back on the last World Cup weekend of the year.
The 26-year-old could have taken part in the races in Lenzerheide with the proverbial crowbar – he was also registered by the association as a precautionary measure – but the experiences from the previous year led him to forego starting.
Biathlon star doesn’t want to repeat mistakes from last year
“I made this mistake last year in Annecy when I came last in the mass start. After that I was sick for ten more days,” explained Samuelsson, who ran poorly at the race in France in the preseason and was then presented with the bill.
He didn’t want to take that risk again this year because he wants to prepare intensively for the start of 2024 around the turn of the year. Even if it is clear that winning the overall World Cup will be a “stressful” matter for him in this situation, said Samuelsson.