Otepää (dpa) – Her eyes lit up, Vanessa Voigt was overjoyed after her biathlon coup in Otepää. “That’s the icing on the cake for me,” she said. “I’m really happy to be on this podium. Who would have thought it before the season,” said the 24-year-old.
For the first time in her career, the young woman from Thuringia had managed this feat, taking second place in the sprint race on Friday after shooting clean. Only Julia Simon from France was better, eleven seconds faster despite one penalty loop. “I’m kind of speechless. It’s really crazy,” said Voigt on ARD.
With the bouquet in hand and the medal hung around her neck, she jumped onto the podium a little later, applauded by the fans in the stadium in Estonia’s winter capital. “If it’s really about the hot sausage up front, then I can get extra power out of my body again. I don’t know where I get it from either. Somehow I always manage to top it again,” she described her run into Luck.
Denise Herrmann Fourth
Third in the penultimate World Cup of the season was Norway’s Karoline Offigstad Knotten, who also shot clean and was 12.8 seconds slower than the winner from France. Individual Olympic champion Denise Herrmann came in fourth, the 33-year-old was 3.4 seconds behind the 7.5 kilometers on the podium. “I lost a lot of time at the shooting range. I’m happy with fourth place and Vanessa on the podium, that’s a good team result,” said Herrmann.
Her teammate also benefited from the lack of competition in the German team at the beginning of the season. Only since this winter has the confident shooter become a permanent member of the World Cup team. In the Olympic individual last in Beijing when Herrmann won, she narrowly missed the medal in fourth place, only 1.3 seconds missing from bronze, which she then won with the women’s relay.
“I worked on my shooting times yesterday. I wanted to show that I can do in competition what I train for in training,” she said. “But I’d rather shoot a clean sheet than be sloppy,” she said. At the World Cup in Otepää, the mass start competitions continue on Saturday, and Voigt has a lot of confidence again.
Ukrainian women with premiere
The third best German ski hunter was Franziska Preuss in twelfth place. “To be honest, I would have wished for a better gift, but it was my own fault,” said Preuss, who turned 28 on Friday and struggled with her two shooting errors. Vanessa Hinz was 19th, Franziska Hildebrand was 23rd and Janina Hettich was 32nd.
The Ukrainians Olena (17) and Julia Horodna (20) celebrated their debut in the Biathlon World Cup with places 85 and 82. The two sisters were able to flee to their home country of Poland after the Russian invasion. While World Cup starters like Dmytro Pidrutschnji or Julia Dschima were drafted and are fighting in their home countries, the young biathletes are the only ones who represent the blue and yellow national colors in Estonia and thus set a symbolic sign.