Biathlon - Oberhof: 4 - 8 Jan

Women’s 4 x 6 Km Team Event: Initially 15 teams but the Finns withdrew late on – 14 left; the favourites are Russia, France & Norway – media pressure on Germany who finished only 6th in the last event, and now on their home soil. Not a very nice looking track, despite the efforts of the organisers – quite wet too. For this event at each shoot the magazine holds the usual 5 rounds with 3 spare rounds, which have to be manually loaded. If any target remains standing after the spares, it’s off to the penalty loop – one loop per target remaining.

On leg 1 France (Dorin-Habert) went out fast, but the Italians shot faster and better; they left the range in the order Italy, France and Norway, with Germany (Henkel) nicely placed in 4th. Henkel took the lead on the next lap and just as she came in to her standing shoot I lost Eurosport; eventually got a picture on the IBU site and tried to keep up on the ZDF ticker – interesting to see a difference in the spelling of athletes names between the two! Coming to the first changeover Dorin-Habert lifted her pace coming into the stadium, handing over a lead to Bescond, with Bachmann (Ger) away 2nd then Slovakia, Russia, Czech Republic and Italy. Bescond didn’t have a good time here (comments in French on the IBU site quite hostile) missing 4 (?) in her standing shoot; Slovakia led away from that shoot ahead of Germany, Russia (Sleptsova), France, Romania (a surprise) and Norway. On the lap up to the next change both the leaders fell – Bachmann recovered faster and handed over to Sabrina Bucholz in the lead. Slovakia still second but Russia have Olga Zaitseva on this leg and she soon took over 2nd place. At the prone shoot Bucholz needed 1 spare, but Zaitseva unusually required 3, so they left the range in the order Ger/Svk/Rus/Fra/Nor. Again Olga was amazingly fast on the next loop, closing down Sabrina who I thought kept her head very well – not rushing but staying well in touch, and just leading the Russian into their standing shoot. Again, several extras needed buy the leading four and Sabrina came out 1.3 seconds ahead of Olga, with France 3rd and Norway 4th.

By now the Germans were looking very happy – the last leg was Lena Neuner’s and she has 8 (I think) World Cup golds and 2 Olympic golds; on the run into the final change Olga cut inside at the mean right hand bend, but Sabrina pulled back on the next hill – brave effort! In the end Olga managed to hand over just ahead, so Lena was a couple seconds back as they went out to the final loops. She easily passed the Russian and at the prone shoot both went clear with no spares required. The fast chasing Tora Berger (Nor) needed one spare and left the range 28 seconds back, with France 4th. Just the standing shoot to go; as a supporter of the German women’s team this is painful to write – even more so when watching last night – Lena missed all 5! She ended up needing to complete 4 penalty loops – goodbye podium and the ZDF team went very quiet. In the end Russia held off Norway to win, with France third and Germany back in 4th ahead of Belarus and Slovakia (great effort by their team). Looking at the German papers last night Lena was obviously completely gutted; hopefully she can recover by the sprints on Friday.

Men’s 4 x 7.5 Km relay: A bigger event than the women’s with 22 countries involved including GB. The big concern was “storm Andrea” which was expected to bring heavy snow and strong winds, which would obviously make the shooting trickier while fresh snow on the tracks would also make life more difficult. Apparently last year, in similar conditions, the top 3 teams needed 16 penalty loops between them after using all the spare rounds! Certainly on the first leg the winds around the course seemed fierce although conditions on the range looked better – heavy snow though (2.5 inches in 1.5 hours) and quite poor visibility in patches; after the first shoot the Russians were ahead from Norway, Italy Czech Republic and Finland – and Britain’s Lee Jackson was among the shooters who got all five with no spares! At S2 Shipulin (Rus) needed 2 spares but still led from Nor; Ita; Ger; USA & Aut. By the first exchange Russia was still ahead, but Schempp had lifted the Germans up to second ahead of Norway and Italy – the French had already done 2 penalty loops; unusual as they normally shoot really well?

At S3 the Russian again needed 2 spares, but Andi Birnbacher shot 5/5 to close up – Italy now in third and Norway on the penalty loop after a massive wind shift which also condemned the Austrians to 2 loops and USA to one. S4 was trickier and both Russia and Germany needed all three spare rounds; Birnbacher did well to limit the damage in tricky conditions - Italy’s Markus Windisch also shot very well , as did Sweden’s Bjorn Ferry. At the second exchange Russia still led with Ustyugov taking over for them; Germany was second with Florian Graf on the tracks and the Italian change was a family affair with Markus Windisch handing over to brother Dominik. Sweden were 4th ahead of Austria while Norway were 10th at that stage (they had rested Bø and OEB but still had Svendsen to come on the final leg). Into S5 and Ustyugov had a quiet patch – he made the most of it with 5 fast, well placed shots and was out before Graf could settle; the wind promptly got up and Graf had one penalty loop to do; Italy however only needed one spare and took over second place; Graf just stayed ahead of Sweden with a recovering France back in the mix with Austria. Alas for Russia Ustyugov couldn’t repeat his luck in the standing shoot and had 2 loops to do – even so he was out first ahead of Ita/Ger/Swe/Fra/Aut.

At the final changeover Russia (Volkov) was first away from Lukas Hofer (Ita), Carl Johann Bergmann (Swe) and Arnd Peiffer (Ger) – on the way to the final prone shoot Lukas was flying; I can’t have been the only one wondering if he was going too hard! Apparently not – Volkov needed 2 extras but Hofer (and Arnd) went 5/5, Bergmann needed 3 but he’s fast – all to play for in the final shoot! At the end Hofer and Volkov both needed 1 spare but Italy were faster on the tracks; Bergmann wasn’t perfect but Peiffer needed 3 spares and couldn’t match the Swede on the track – end result a massive win for Italy (first relay win for ages), who had no penalty loops and only used 5 spare rounds all evening!! Russia second, Sweden third and Germany 4th for the second time in 2 days – more media pressure to come, I think! All those teams lapped (9 in all, including GB) have to retire and so are recorded as DNF

Women’s 7.5 Km Sprint: Back to normal – 3 laps with one prone and one standing shoot; no spare rounds and a miss equals one penalty loop; weather also looked better! Alas, bad weather elsewhere meant the blasted ski jumping overran yet again and Eurosport stayed with that – after a few minutes of looking at snow flakes, wind flags and people brushing the ramp while the biathlon had already started, I gave up and watched the commentary-less IBU video feed instead. As I joined that Andrea Henkel (Ger) was on her prone shoot – all five down and she went into the lead, ahead of Kaisa Mäkäräinen who had missed one target. Now for the stressful bit – Lena Neuner coming in for her first shoot – again 5/5 (I suspect the coaches have had her practising on the range all day yesterday) and she was also 13.9 seconds faster than Henkel – happier already! However, Darya Domracheva (Blr) was also a fairly early starter – she also shot 5/5 and was another 3.6 seconds faster at that stage – a good race in prospect. At their second shoot both Kaisa and Andrea missed one target, and then it was Lena’s turn – this is where it all went wrong in the relay, and the mental pressure must have been enormous, but she cleared the lot and then went onto her last lap – vollgas time. About now you have to rely on the video people to cover a good mix of the later starters and the finishers – not too bad an effort today although necessarily you do miss some of the athletes you’d like to see. Priority was to see Darya’s standing shoot – she missed one target and the resulting penalty loop took her out of contention for the top of the podium – still fast though. Behind these two Brunet (Fra) went clear at S1 but was slow, while Dorin-Habert (Fra) missed all 5 – very unusual. Helena Ekholm (Swe) was also unusually poor on her first shoot and my next worry, Tora Berger (Nor) also had 2 penalty loops after the prone.

The Ukrainians also dropped targets as did Sleptsova (Rus) but noble sniperin Olga Zaitseva went 5/5 on her prone shoot and was fast too – a real threat to both Lena and Darya; getting interesting again! Miri Gössner (Ger) missed 3 on her prone, so despite her speed that was her day spoiled; back to the standing shoot and Olga was coming in – still fast. She shot really quickly and again cleared all 5, but came out behind Lena’s time in second – thought she looked a little tired after her relay? As the last lap unfolded Olga seemed to be slower skiing than Domracheva and lost time – at the final split she was just 4 seconds inside the Belarus athlete’s time and despite the urging of her coach she slipped back further eventually finishing third about 6 seconds back on Darya. End result – a great comeback by Lena Neuner for her 26th World Cup win (12 in sprint events), with Domracheva 2nd (so very close in the overall standings still) and Olga Zaitseva third. Despite 2 penalty loops Kaisa Mäkäräinen was 4th, with Henkel 5th and Teja Gregorin 6th – good race.

Men’s 10 Km Sprint: Again 3 loops with one prone and one standing shoot (liked the Eurosport commentator’s description of the prone target as “like a toilet roll cardboard tube, end on” – and it’s at 50 metres!). Visibility not good here either with snow/rain coming in; 95 starters but no Greis, Fourcade (Martin), Bø or Björndalen – chance for Svendsen to nick some points?. Early starter Michael Rösch (Ger) shot clear and fast so his time was the one to beat; Klemen Bauer (Slo) proceeded to do just that, and Bergman (Swe) was also good! Lukas Hofer, seemingly back on form after Italy’s great win in the relay, also 5/5 and fast – very close in the early stages. At S2 Rösch missed one, as did Björn Ferry – track possibly slowing as the snow continues; maybe not? Back at S1 Andi Birnbacher misses one, while Alex Boeuf missed 4 – unhappy French coach time. K Bauer (Slo) apparently isn’t at his best in the standing, but he only dropped one and came out ahead of Rösch; Ustyugov (Rus) stays clear, 10/10 and into the lead – here comes Lukas Hofer though also with 10/10 and a tiny bit faster.

Meanwhile Svendsen is into S1 – unusually 2 misses and that will do him no favours, despite his speed. Over to the 9.4 Km split and Hofer is now 6 seconds behind Ustyugov, having left the stadium 4 seconds ahead – like Neuner, Ustyugov didn’t have a good relay but he’s back now! Simon Fourcade however is also on fire back at S2, with 10/10 – too fast up the next hill though? Simon definitely fading a bit on the last lap but he’d done enough early and takes it by 3.7 seconds – big threats now are Arnd Peiffer (even with 1 miss) and Lars Berger but Berger’s S2 is poor – only 2/5. Arnd digs deep – he dropped back a little on the middle of the final lap, but then really gave it everything on the run to the finish and beat Simon F’s time by just 1.1 seconds. Meanwhile Svendsen, with three penalty loops skied, is still lying in 6th only 27 seconds back – quite amazing! So, today – Peiffer; Simon Fourcade; Ustyugov, Hofer; Makoveev and Svendsen.

Women’s 12.5 Km Mass Start. First of the day – 5 loops of the track with 2 prone and 2 standing shoots: lots of fresh snow, even over the prepared surface which caused a few falls early on, including one involving Olga Zaitseva. At S1 (prone) the women on the right side seemed to have more misses; 1 each for Lena Neuner, Kaisa Mäkäräinen, Tora Berger and Olga Zaitseva among others, and 2 for Domracheva – some suggestion that this might be the snow under the mats shifting slightly? Anyway, leading out are Brunet, Hildebrand, Yurlova and Ponza. On the next lap a flying Lena made up for her miss, seemingly with plenty in reserve, behind Ukraine’s Vita Semerenko. Lena missed another on S2, so out of the stadium with the prone shoots over it was Vita S from Andrea Henkel, then Brunet, Berger, Dorin-Habert, Sleptsova and Zaitseva. Alas Semerenko missed 2 at the first standing shoot, Lena missed her third of the day, Berger missed one but shot so fast that she’d probably made up half the penalty loop by being so quick; Henkel went clear, but Kaisa Mäkäräinen dropped 4 and even with her speed that’s too many! On the next lap Henkel led, with Lena again going really fast to pass Berger and the 2 French women, although the Norwegian did manage to hold her as they approached the stadium for the final shoot – all to play for. Brilliant shooting by the first three – all clear and again Berger was really fast and out of the stadium about 6 seconds clear of the two Germans. On the final lap Neuner again applied vollgas to pull slightly clear of Berger, who in turn opened a gap on Henkel who was possibly beginning to worry about Zaitseva? In the end Lena (3 misses) won again, from Berger (2) and Henkel (1), so 2 Germans on the podium – some compensation for the relay? Darya Domracheva was 7th, despite 5 penalty loops, so the overall standings remain close.

Men’s 15 Km Mass Start: Fair amount of chaos at the start – as ZDF put it, “like a centipede on skis” as the 30 best male biathletes fight for places; again the weather not very good but the same for all. Into S1 (prone) and the wind drops; the shooters at the left side are faster and cleaner, so away more quickly while Martin Fourcade (back after not competing yesterday) and C J Bergman both miss one target and head for the penalty loop. Simon Fourcade leads out of the stadium ahead of Klemen Bauer and Andi Birnbacher, but ages to go yet! Into S2 – more misses but Birnbacher, Bauer, Peiffer, Weger and Lowell Bailey (USA) are among those who go clear – Bailey’s shooting very accurate! Bauer pushes the pace, but then eases back which lets the chasers slightly catch the leading 5. Now into the first standing shoot – best record here should be Ben Weger (Swi) but let’s see! In fact Ben misses 2 – Klemen Bauer, who isn’t famed for his standing shooting, goes clear and leads out from Andi B and Simon F – Shipulin and Bergman also back in the mix; all change! Bauer and Birnbacher are together on the lap, with Simon F and Shipulin pushing hard. Crucial S4 – Andi goes clear (only man with 20/20 today?) and so does Simon; Bauer lets it slip and misses 3 – pressure? At 12.8 Km Andi is 10.8 seconds clear of Simon F with Frederik Lindstrom (Swe) 3rd – behind them, despite poor (for him) shooting Svendsen is going like a rocket! Andi Birnbacher (20/20) keeps the lead all the way, Simon Fourcade (1 miss) gets second and the amazing Emile Hegle Svendsen (3) goes into third! Great day for Germany on their home soil.