Franziska Preuß achieved her tenth podium finish of the season in the last individual race before the World Championships.
The 30-year-old defended her third place in the sprint in the yellow jersey in the pursuit of Antholz. After ten kilometers and one shooting error, she prevailed in a duel with the French Jeanne Richard on a thrilling final lap. Selina Grotian (+1:36.7 minutes) fell back to sixth place with two errors after her second place on Thursday.
“I knew that I needed the zero at the last shooting,” said Preuß on “ZDF”: “It was a cool situation that I was able to get the Jeanne because we had room to go back. I actually wanted it the long way Try the climb. But the French had better skis than us, and then it was too risky for me to go downhill again. Then only the last jump was left and full throttle to the finish. It was the right tactic.
At the front, sprint winner Lou Jeanmonnot celebrated a confident start-to-finish success with one mistake and reduced her gap to Preuß in the overall World Cup to 92 points.
The German duo started with one penalty each in the first shooting and allowed Jeanmonnot to escape early. While Grotian left another target on the third attempt, Preuß remained flawless from then on – and was rewarded with a strong final lap at 1,600 meters altitude.
The Bavarian takes the yellow jersey with her into the World Championships and the third trimester, in which there are seven more individual races. Second place on the 2026 Olympic courses was the faultless Frenchwoman Julia Simon (0 penalties/+24.1 seconds), who worked her way up from fifth place. Sophia Schneider ended up outside the points after five mistakes.
At the end of the second trimester and the last race before the World Cup, the relay takes place on Sunday (12.05 p.m./ZDF and Eurosport). However, after two recent wins, the German quartet is weakened in terms of personnel. In addition to Vanessa Voigt and Julia Tannheimer, who are already missing due to illness, Stefanie Scherer also has to miss at short notice; Marlene Fichtner and Julia Kink arrived from the European Championship training camp as replacements.
After the relay, a large part of the team will stay in the Antholzer Höhe and complete the final World Cup preparation course there. The highlight of the season will take place in Lenzerheide/Switzerland from February 12th to 23rd.