The wind blows the German medal hopes away
Things were going well for Benedikt Doll and Philipp Nawrath until halfway through the race. the DSV-Starters were involved at the top, they seemed to be able to avert the disappointing zero number for the German biathletes. But then the strong wind at the shooting range blew away the last hopes of a medal.
“Of course it hurts, but it doesn’t help”said Nawrath after the race: “We have to keep working and see that we can attack again in the future.”
Up until the third shooting stage, he and Doll had been flawless in second and third place, but then the gusty wind picked up again. Doll made a total of six penalty loops in extremely difficult wind conditions and was the best German in eighth.
Huge gap on squall
The gap to Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bö (4 penalties), who won his fourth gold medal in the sixth race and set a record for Norway’s 15th Olympic victory at this Winter Games, was 2:31.4 minutes.
“My fingers froze off in between. I tried it, it didn’t work. It just wasn’t enough for a medal.”Doll reported in the ZDF.
Dolls: “That’s how it is in sports”
Looking back, he said of the zero number in Beijing: “The fact that we didn’t get a medal in the relay hurts a lot. It was little things that prevented the medals. It’s not that we were miles away.”
Doll was not satisfied with his own performance at the Winter Games. “It either works or it doesn’t work, now it didn’t work at these Olympics. It’s a disappointment, but I can get over it.”, he said. At the same time, Doll put the German performance into perspective: “My goodness, it worked four years ago. It didn’t work here. That’s how it is in sport.”
Kirchner: “A little bit of luck was missing”
Biathlon national coach Mark Kirchner found, however, that everything had to fit in order to land on the podium. And that’s not the case in Beijing. “The little bit of luck was missing”he summed up: “Not just today, but in many races in Beijing. That’s why we weren’t granted a medal here.”
Biathletes win two medals
From the point of view of the German Ski Association, a two-part conclusion can be drawn after the games in Beijing. The women won two medals with Denise Herrmann’s victory over 15 kilometers and third place in the relay.
A satisfactory result – even if the women’s national coach Kristian Mehringer slightly quarreled. “We had imagined three medals”he said in ZDF: “Of course we know that we still have a few construction sites in the coming years. But we’ll analyze that calmly and then we’ll attack again.”
The larger construction sites, however, are definitely among the men. They fell short of expectations. And so the realization after the Olympic Winter Games is that something is missing at the moment to be the absolute best in the world.