interview
Sportschau biathlon expert Erik Lesser speaks in the winter sports podcast about the top results of German biathletes, which have become rarer in recent years. The former biathlete explains which factors play a role from his point of view – and what he believes the DSV team can do this season.
Sports show: Would you say that the media talks about German biathletes as worse than they actually are?
Erik Lesser: If you look at other nations or football, for example how the Bundesliga is reported – then the biathlon athlete must not complain about critical journalism. I think it involves asking critical questions and also questioning performances that may be presented by the team as optimal or positive.
That doesn’t mean that you don’t value the team’s performance, but rather that you have to report on it. You have to say: Okay, somehow everything isn’t really cool.
We have potential in the team: Philipp Horn, Philipp Nawrath, they can show strong running performances. But at the moment they don’t have the potential to be as calm at the shooting range as a Sturla Holm Laegreid, like a Johannes Thingnes Bö, like a Quentin Fillon Maillet 2022.
Sports show: Why is the shooting range such an Achilles heel right now?
Lesser: It’s just mental, I would say, it’s a mental approach. We Germans tend to make ourselves small and see the problems rather than the positive. And the Norwegians just jump into the race and say: I’ve got you under control now, I’m going to get rid of you now.
That’s quite a character issue. To get there again: we go in there with a big chest and someone has to beat us again. Of course, it’s easy to say from the outside that you have to “act as if you were the best.”
Sports show: You can’t apply this Norway principle to everyone, everyone’s type is different.
Lesser: Exactly, that of course depends entirely on the type. Among Norwegians, there are also more introverted types who tend to withdraw and look for solutions for themselves.
Of course, the Norwegians also have a much broader range of young talent. You can draw from many more athletes and many more athletes can push themselves upwards than is now the case in Germany.
Lesser: “Not a bad one Youth work at the DSV”
Sports show: Would you say that the DSV has missed out on doing good youth work in recent years?
Lesser: I will now say in general: No. I’ve been involved in this youth work for a few months now, and I’ve observed it before. I don’t think we’ve done bad youth work, that the DSV has done something wrong – or that the DSV hasn’t invested in it.
We just miss the children. I’m now looking at this from my Thuringian perspective: In the end, we’re lacking young talent. There is now one boy in the “Student 15” in Thuringia, maybe two girls or no girls at all. In “Student 14” it gets a little more.
And we’re talking about Thuringia and Oberhof – this is a biathlon mecca. Sven Fischer, Frank Luck, Mark Kirchner and Frank Ulrich come from there. And there are junior classes in which only one person does biathlon. A human! A person does biathlon in the “S15” in Thuringia.
Silver in the individual at the 2014 Olympic Games: Erik Lesser
Sports show: Why is that? Is biathlon not attractive enough?
Lesser: Biathlon is attractive, but the result is that fewer children are courted by the same number of clubs. Every offer has to be taken advantage of: basketball, handball, football, etc. Our problem is that we simply have too few children.
Lesser: “Somehow the development stops”
Sports show: That brings us back to the Norwegians, who produce young biathletes on an assembly line. Right now with Isak Frey again.
Lesser: Isak Frey – a detail comes to mind. I think it’s really cool, it reminds me of Tarjei Bö. He rose from the juniors to become the overall World Cup winner within two seasons. In 2009 he was at the Junior World Championships with me in Canmore, then in 2010/2011 he was the overall World Cup winner. Excuse me, what? Give me four more years.
Aspiring biathlete: Norway’s Isak Frey (22 years old)
And unfortunately that happens far too often with us: We have a lot of talent and medals among the juniors, where you say “cool, you were there with that Isak Frey, you were close, even before that. And where are you now, why do you have to qualify for the IBU Cup? That can’t be right.” Somehow our development then stops. I don’t know why that is.
Sports show: What is possible for the DSV athletes this season?
Lesser: I just hope that our men have learned a lot from the last few years and have gained a lot of peace and quiet. This year, the processing and the comparability of training results were rolled out differently.
I hope that by taking a more structured approach to the Olympic season, perhaps one or two people will make fewer mistakes. We are not without a chance. In recent years the boys have always made one mistake or two mistakes too many in such a really important race.
The entire interview with Erik Lesser with topics such as how to best deal with setbacks, the difficulty of motivating yourself every day over a long career and Lesser’s coaching activities can be found in the complete podcast episode.