This year, the German biathletes are preparing for the start of the World Cup in Sweden, which begins in Östersund in two weeks. At the Swedish season opener in Idre Fjäll, several DSV ski hunters were able to impress.
Philipp Horn and Simon Kaiser took second and third place in the 10 kilometer sprint at the “Sverigepremiäre” on Saturday, with Swede Sebastian Samuelsson winning.
Justus Strelow (4th), Danilo Riethmüller (6th), Philipp Nawrath (7th) and Leonhard Pfund (9th) completed the good performance of the biathletes from the German Ski Association. David Zobel (15th), Roman Rees (16th), Lucas Fratzscher (19th) and Johannes Kühn (25th) had to line up further back.
After an error in the prone position, Horn was almost 40 seconds behind the outstanding Samuelsson, who was also the 2018 Olympic relay champion and made no mistakes in both shooting sessions. Kaiser crossed the finish line without any mistakes and around 54 seconds behind.
Strelow also made no mistakes at the shooting range; he was around a minute behind Samuelsson. The second best Swede was Martin Ponsiluoma (3 errors, +1:10 minutes), who took fifth place.
Two German women in the top 10 – Preuß not there
The German women also took part in the 7.5 kilometer sprint in Idre Fjäll. From the DSV’s point of view, Marlene Fichtner (0 errors, +1:12 minutes) achieved the best result in sixth place, with Julia Tannheimer (9th, 2 errors, +1:31 minutes) a second German athlete made it into the top 10. The sisters Hanna and Elvira Öberg secured first and second places ahead of Linn Gestblom.
Selina Grotian (13th), Sophia Schneider (14th), Vanessa Voigt (18th) and Janina Hettich-Walz (19th) completed the result from a German perspective. Overall World Cup winner Franziska Preuß did not start in Sweden. She had previously stated that she only wanted to do “a few more reduced training days” before the start of the World Cup in Östersund (November 29th) after recovering from a hand injury.
The races in Idre Fjäll are intended to give the DSV athletes important competition practice. However, the races next week in Ruhpolding serve as qualification.