After the cold start in the icy Östersund Simon Schempp was astounded with a rather surprising assessment:”I’m satisfied for the time being,”said the 29-year-old – with his 16th birthday. However, he was not able to prevent the worst season opener of the German biathletes for twelve years.
But the ambitious mass start world champion didn’t care much,”for starters,”emphasized Schempp,”that’s okay.”
Perhaps the past had taught the DSV athletes humility. The classic over 20 km, the longest and most exhausting race in biathlon, is the German problem discipline par excellence.
The last victory of a DSV athlete, Michael Greis had won this one, is now ten years ago – in no other discipline the dry spell is so long.
And on Thursday, too, worlds were missing at the end of the Sieglos series. Schempp was 3:28.2 minutes behind the Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Boe, who with his infamous harakiri inlays at the shooting range and a convincing mileage even placed the French dominator Martin Fourcade clearly in third place at temperatures around minus five degrees Celsius. Second place went to his compatriot Quentin Fillon Maillet.
“You wouldn’t dream of a head start like that before the race. I just worked as hard as I could,”said Boe, who now has at least one World Cup victory in each discipline. Fourcade, however, was annoyed by the mistakes in the last attack:”I wanted too much when the last shot was fired. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was a very good start,”said the accustomed Fourcade, who had set the fastest time in the cross-country ski run, on ZDF.
Schempp was running in a different, worse league that day. He accepted the balance of power and preferred to look at the few positive aspects.
“Two shooting mistakes in the singles are okay. I was also satisfied with the run, even though there was still some room for improvement,”said the Uhinger, who has already climbed the podium twice in the Östersund singles, but also clearly more bitter disappointments such as the 46th place. We are pleased to report that we came in second last year.
Second best German was Erik Lesser as 17th… The 29-year-old, Olympic runner-up from Sochi, missed out on a much better ranking with two mistakes in the last shooting.
Sprint World Champion Benedikt Doll after four shooting mistakes and Arnd Peiffer fell far short of expectations. Also Johannes Kühn and Philipp Nawrath, who had fought their way through the second-class IBU-Cup, could not recommend themselves.
The German women want to do better than in the singles on Friday in the sprint. In the absence of seven-time world champion Laura Dahlmeier, Franziska Hildebrand was the best German on Wednesday 13th place. In the first place and thus meets half the Olympic norm. However, the former cross-country skier Denise Herrmann is more likely.
“I know I’m in good shape,”said the 28-year-old who was at her 23rd birthday party. The second place in the singles had reached the fastest running time. In the previous week, she had triumphed in the IBU-Cup in the sprint.