Benedikt Doll has never shot clean in the relay in the Biathlon World Cup in more than a decade. This changed in his last race.
Benedikt Doll finished his last relay race in the Biathlon World Cup on the podium. In the race in Soldier Hollow in the US, the veteran from the German team made no mistakes at the shooting range for the first time in his twelve years in the World Cup, paving the way for third place.
The Norwegians won ahead of the German quartet of Doll, Justus Strelow, Johannes Kühn and Philipp Nawrath. Italy came second.
Dolls reaches his goal
“I only had one goal today: to shoot cleanly,” explained Doll, who will end his career after the last race of the season next weekend in Canmore, Canada, on the ARD microphone. He is “very happy” that he achieved this.
Doll had a special motivation: “I wanted to prove it to Arnd and Erik again.” The 33-year-old was referring to his former teammates Arnd Peiffer and Erik Lesser, with whom he competed in numerous World Cup relays and who now work as ARD biathlon experts.
Doll achieved this impressively. However, the race didn’t go completely smoothly for him. At the finish, the 2017 sprint world champion struggled particularly with the conditions on the approximately 1,800 meter course in Soldier Hollow, where the Olympic biathlon competitions were held in 2002.
“I didn’t feel good as a runner today,” said Doll, who has problems with the altitude in the US state of Utah: “You start running and at some point the man with the hammer comes along.”