The Biathlon World Championships in Nove Mesto was and is also a material battle, the soft, dirty snow makes it difficult for the ski hunters on the trails. The Germans haven’t looked particularly good in the fight for the best skis so far – and have more or less given up hope of a turnaround before the last races.
“Now that’s just how it is,” said Benedikt Doll almost resignedly after the disappointing fourth place in the men’s relay. “We didn’t have the great material at the World Cup as we did at the last six World Cups.”
There are “small nations like Estonia and Finland that are at the forefront. They’ve probably just found something. After the World Cup, there are three more World Cups, so we’ll be there again,” said Doll, more or less ticking off the World Cup for himself.
He will “take part in the mass start again and finish the race. In Oslo the conditions will certainly be different again,” said Doll. Selina Grotian – bronze winner in the women’s relay – agreed. The skis even “stuck a little bit to the snow,” she said, describing the DSV team’s problems.
Biathlon World Cup: Sports director draws positive conclusion
Sports director Felix Bitterling was a little more combative than Doll before the final mass stars. “It won’t be the case that we’ll have the overskis here again,” he admitted. But the team can “definitely hope for a surprise. We won’t give them up until the two competitions are over.”
In general, despite the material struggle in Nove Mesto, Bitterling drew a positive conclusion from the World Cup. “Of course it would have been nicer for us to continue one-on-one with the successes and also the amount of successes. But it’s also nice to see that we can fight our way in. We already have three medals – that’s the same number as last year and we also had Denise (Hermann-Wick; editor’s note) with us.” It’s “absolutely not all bad.”