The Swedish biathlon men simply don’t want to get going in the individual competitions. In the individual at the World Championships in Nove Mesto, the yellow-blue team failed, especially on the shooting range. German biathlon icon Uschi Disl also commented on the fiasco afterwards.
The Swedish biathletes had a “dark day” on Wednesday, Uschi Disl aptly summarized on the “Radiosport” program. Because: Sebastian Samuelsson, Martin Ponsiluoma, Jesper Nelin and Peppe Femling missed a total of 18 shots – a horror result at the shooting range.
“18 missed shots are more than we should have. We are better than that,” said Nelin, who collected five tickets alone and crossed the finish line in 33rd place, 6:20 minutes behind.
Martin Ponsiluoma, who fell well short of expectations with six mistakes and ended up in 39th place, 6:55 minutes behind, found even clearer words: “Today was a shitty competition, so of course it’s disappointing.”
“I’m not doing the job the way I should do it”
The 28-year-old 2021 sprint world champion, who won the bronze medal in the mixed relay at the start of the World Cup in the Czech Republic, was visibly at a loss afterwards as to how the poor performance in the individual could have happened. “It’s hard to say,” “Expressen” quotes him as saying: “In the first series (1 mistake, editor’s note) I still work well. Then the first standing shooting is much too bad. I don’t do the job as well I should do it.”
The best Swede with “only” three misses (+3:28 minutes) was Sebastian Samuelsson, who won bronze in the individual in Oberhof a year ago and was later crowned mass start world champion. The 26-year-old finished in a conciliatory seventh place.
Peppe Femling made four errors at the shooting range and came 64th, his gap to the top was 8:59 minutes.