Biathlon - Hochfilzen II

Men’s 10 Km sprint: With Le Grand Bonard cancelled Hochfilzen is once again the venue for this weekend’s biathlon events. Flat light today (Thu) and quite heavy snow falling early on – the support staff are out in force clearing the mats in the range of snow. Early contenders included Simon Fourcade (Fra) who was fast and shot clear in both shoots, as did Timofey Lapshin (Rus) and Alexi Boeuf (Fra); by contrast Martin Fourcade missed 1 at each shoot and Svendsen missed 2 at each stop – with the track seeming to get faster as conditions improved it all came down to how much the late starters could make up on the track. At the finish Simon Fourcade deservedly held the lead early on but with later starters still on the course; Schempp just pipped Simon’s time and then Tarjei Bø (Nor) put in a superb final lap to take the lead by nearly 19 seconds. Speeds were definitely on the rise and Martin Fourcade ended up faster than his brother despite not shooting as well! In the end Bø took the win (1 penalty) from Martin Fourcade (2); Lapshin (0) with Simon Schempp (Ger, 1) tied in fourth place with Jean Guillaume Beatrix (Fra, 1) then Simon F (0), and Jakob Fak (Slo, 0). A good day for the French who got the start times pretty much right – ironic that poor Simon F had one of his best days but started early as the team apparently thought he was one of their weaker prospects!

Women’s 7.5 Km Sprint: (Fri). The French, whose reading of the conditions on Thursday was right, reckoned that today’s event would be faster early, but they were the only ones – everyone else has their fast athletes stacked later in the start lists. Among the early starters was Miri Gössner (Ger) – hugely fast but sometimes a bit flaky on the range; her coach improved things last year but she seems to have slipped back, and today missed 2 at each shoot. I thought Olena Pidhrushna (Ukr) would do well after a good start but she had an even worse meltdown on S2 and missed all 5; again quite windy and changeable here. Tora Berger (Nor) was a also a casualty of the range with a total of 4 misses affecting her chances. Lena Neuner was a bit better with only 2 misses but looked tired in the middle of the race. In the end the later starters did seem to do better; Olga Zaitseva (Rus) took the win with only 1 miss and a very fast ski from Darya Domracheva (Belarus, 2) and Helena Ekholm (Swe, 1). Lena Neuner put in a fast last lap to get back to 4th (2) from Vita Semerenko (Ukr, 1) with Habert (Fra, 1) tied in 6th with Jialin Tang (Chi, 1). An exciting race!

Men’s 12.5 Km Pursuit: (Sat) Joined this around the second shoot (last prone); at that stage Bø was leading from Martin Fourcade, with a strong group about 20 seconds back including Lapshin, Schempp and Eder. At shoot 3 both Martin F and Bø missed 1 target but the “chasing pack” went clear; leaving the range it was Simon Fourcade leading from Björndalen with Andi Birnbacher hauling himself up from 26th place to 3rd with very accurate shooting ahead of Eder; Martin F & TB were just behind after their penalty loops. At 9 Km the leading group had closed up, so shoot 4 would be absolutely crucial – Andi, Simon and OEB all went clear, Eder and Bø missed 1 and I think Martin dropped 2. The last lap was exciting with the lead shifting as it got tactical – the commentators reckoned OEB isn’t too fast at the sprint and needed to break away but that didn’t seem possible – coming into the stadium OEB looked plenty fast enough to me but Andi B got his foot over the line first by 0.2 seconds with Simon F taking a very well deserved third. Tarjei Bø managed fourth despite his shooting with Ben Weger (Swi) fifth and Simon Eder (Aut) 6th. Some impressive performances but my vote for best of the day goes to Andi Birnbacher, hauling himself up from 26th place to a very close win.

Women’s 10 Km Pursuit. Not live on Eurosport, so I watched on the IBU site (good pictures but no commentary, which for a pursuit isn’t a real problem) with the ZDF live-ticker as an extra; if I’ve made any errors it’s due to my German! Olga Zaitseva (Rus) was away first from Darya Domracheva (BLR), Helena Ekholm (Swe) and Lena Neuner (Ger). At S1 (prone) Darya missed 1 but the other 3 went clear – her sheer ski speed however kept her in the hunt. At the 3.3 Km split Olga was over 20 seconds clear of Neuner, who was closing well, Ekholm and Darya. Into the second prone shoot and it all started to go wrong for Lena (her coach wont be pleased!) as she dropped 2; Domracheva dropped 1 more, but Olga, Helena and the fast skiing Kaisa Mäkäräinen (Fin) went clear. By the 5.5 Km stage Olga was nicely placed about 20 seconds clear of Ekholm, with Domracheva, Kaisa M and Andrea Henkel (Ger) about another 30 seconds back. Into the first standing shoot and Olga Z looked really superb – what I saw of her shots seemed to be well centred and she again cleared the lot! This time she was well clear as she left the range, from Helena E, Darya and Andrea with Dorin Habert (Fra) just behind. Meanwhile Tora Berger, who started 24th, was “doing an Andi” and closing fast. I lost track of Lena (my favourite if you hadn’t guessed) who apparently dropped yet 2 more targets and effectively ruined her chance of a good finish. In the final shoot Zaitseva seemed to have some problems with her rifle but despite the difficulties kept her concentration and went 20/20 – very impressive! By now it was snowing harder; even with a relatively slow shoot Olga Z was about 29 seconds clear of Helena at 9.8 Km and managed to collect a Russian flag en route to a very well deserved win. Helena Ekholm (1 miss) held on to second ahead of Darya Domracheva (3) with Tora Berger (1) leading home Kaisa Mäkäräinen (4 misses!!) and Andrea Henkel (1). Again hard to single out a “star of the day” but probably Zaitseva for a superbly judged effort, although Berger deserves mention for her charge up the ranks – amazingly Lena Neuner (with 6 misses) finished 12th – also an amazing effort.

The mixed relay was gripping stuff - 26 teams in all (including GBR), although Norway didn't enter for some reason - would have thought this was an ideal opportunity to try some younger athletes? A look at the team lists revealed that several other countries were ringing the changes while resting some of the stars - no Lena Neuner or Andi Birnbacher in the German team for example, but the Russians looked strong. Format here - 2 x 6 Km legs for the women, 2 x 7.5 Km legs for the men (extra bit very hilly!!) - all 4 to shoot one prone and one stand, with limited numbers of spare rounds available - penalty loops if even that failed to clear the five targets!

Great weather in Hochfilzen! My nomination for the star of leg 1 was Krystyna Palka (Pol), who shot clear and handed over in the lead. Some awful shooting by others despite the conditions (French coach in particular looked very unhappy) but somehow Belarus came in second (fast skiing, not so good on the range) at the first exchange from Germany, France and Italy. On leg 2 Nowakowska (Pol) was impressive, shooting well and keeping her team well in touch. Unfortunately for her, the Russian on this leg was "noble sniper" Olga Zaitseva who shot even better and skiied faster too - definitely the star of leg 2 and an impressive final loop gave her the lead from the Pole. Meanwhile Miri Gössner had a very poor standing shoot after a fair start in the prone, dropping Germany well back - France had recovered slightly to be third at the second change, from Finland, Belarus and the Czech Republic.

Over to the men - at S5 (prone) Volkov (Rus) and Boeuf (Fra) went clear, but Sikora (Pol) was slower and needed a spare round; leaving the range it was Rus/Fra/Pol/Ita/Blr/Cze. At the next shoot Volkov was awesome - very fast and all 5 down - while Boeuf and Sikora lost ground by varying degrees; Rösch (Ger) produced a standing shoot which pretty much equalled Volkov's and dragged Germamny back up to 8th. At the exchange it was Russia from France and then the Czechs with Brendan Green from Canada in 4th. Star of the leg probably Volkov, with honourable mentions to Rösch and Green. Shipulin led off on the final leg for Russia, from Simon Fourcade and Slesingr. At the final shoot Shipulin was in with 32 seconds to spare, cleared all 5 (1st looked a bit lucky but it went down) and was gone! Slesingr needed one spare, but Simon F cleared all his; again very fast. On the final loop Russia was well clear with French, Czechs and Swedes disputing the places - bad news for Fourcade was that he had been in the pursuit while Slesingr hadn't - fresher legs told, and at the end Shipulin was 27 seconds clear of Slesingr with Fourcade another 11 secs back in third. The Swedes took fourth and a good leg by Florian Graf pulled Germany into fifth from Canada. That's it for biathlon for the present - back after Christmas (4 Jan from Oberhof?)