As expected, the pursuit race of the biathlon men in Hochfilzen turned out to be a solo run by Johannes Thingnes Bö. The Norwegian won easily. Best German: Benedikt Doll. Philipp Nawrath had a pitch-black day.
And groundhog says hello every day: The Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Bö remains the measure of all things in biathlon. After winning the sprint on Friday, the Norwegian also won the 12.5 km pursuit race in Hochfilzen, completely superior and by a large margin.
In his lights-to-flag victory, Bö made only two penalties, although his first penalty in the second prone stage was accidental as one shot went unintentionally too early. Bö could get over it, only had to do two penalties in four shooting bouts and won easily ahead of his compatriot Sturla Holm Laegreid (2 penalties) and the Frenchman Emilien Jacquelin (3).
Shooting errors throw Doll back
At the finish, the serial winner didn’t even seem particularly exhausted. He was able to save a few grains on the cross-country ski run, he was so superior once again.
And the Germans? They were disappointing in this pursuit race, also because nobody was able to convince at the shooting range: Benedikt Doll (2/0/0/2), who finished 18th, was still the best. “Two mistakes in standing throw you back. A second zero and you would have gone all the way up. But that’s biathlon“said Doll on ZDF.
Justus Strelow (1/2/0/0), who started from ninth place, fell back to 25th place with four penalties.
Nawrath’s Blackout
Things initially looked good for Philipp Nawrath, who shot clean twice in prone. Then a complete blackout while standing: all five targets stopped and Nawrath was passed all the way to the back. At the finish, he had seven penalties in standing. The receipt: place 54.
Roman Rees (0/0/2/2), Johannes Kühn (1/1/1/3) and David Zobel (2/0/0/0) did a little better on the shooting range than Nawrath, more than But 36th, 37th and 42nd place was not enough.
Bitterling: “Used Day”
“We got a little one on it”said the sports director biathlon in the DSV, Felix Bitterling. “But you have to say that our starting position wasn’t that good. If you then want to attack in the extremely strong field of men, you have to take risks from the start. That may or may not work out. Today was a used day for us.”