The biathlon world association is under criticism. A rule change should actually be an advantage. But because it is understood differently, there is now trouble.
A rule change by the Biathlon World Association caused excitement and criticism at the World Championships in Oberhof. “It’s never been explained like this!!! It’s shameful. The IBU needs to do an introspection”Norway’s men’s coach Siegfried Mazet tweeted.
What happened? Before the women’s sprint on Friday (2:30 p.m.), the IBU announced that more starting places per nation are possible due to a new rule passed in the summer. But some federations, including top nations such as Sweden and Norway, had interpreted the rule differently than the IBU – to their detriment.
“The rule situation is such that, in addition to the basic number of four per nation, a fifth starter is possible if the respective nation has athletes in the top 15 of the overall World Cup.”, said sports director biathlon, Felix Bitterling, after the announcement of the German squad. That’s why a quintet with Denise Herrmann-Wick, Vanessa Voigt, Hanna Kebinger, Janina Hettich-Walz and Sophia Schneider is starting – earlier there would have been only four starting places. There will also be five for the men on Saturday.
IBU Head of Communications: “We will learn from this”
If you have the defending champion or the Olympic champion in your ranks, there can even be a maximum of six places. That would have been the case with the Swedish men, who only send five into the race in the sprint. “This rule is so new that we and many other countries did not know it yet”, said the German head coach Johannes Lukas. And nobody understood the rule like the IBU. Because there was a case of illness in the team at the IBU Cup in Obertilliach, the Swedes are now forgoing a subsequent nomination and thus a starting place for fear of infection in the World Cup team.
“The teams have to know the rules and if they have questions, they have to come to us. But we will learn from it to do better in the future”IBU communications chief Christian Winkler told Swedish broadcaster SVT.
The Norwegians are now bringing two athletes to Thuringia in a heave-off action. It is bitter for Filip Fjeld Andersen. The Norwegian left Oberhof on Tuesday because of an infection with the corona virus. He had apparently been infected in Obertilliach the previous week. If his association had interpreted the rule correctly, he would not have been there at all, but with the A-Team. “Why do you come up with this information the day before the race? When you’ve been communicating something else all season?”Andersen wrote on Twitter.