Biathlon: Fog chaos in Oberhof: German men’s relay without a chance

The athletes were desperately looking for the targets, there was hail of misfire every second: under the most adverse conditions and in extremely dense fog, the German biathletes missed the podium at the World Cup in Oberhof with the relay. Roman Rees, Johannes Kühn, Benedikt Doll and Arnd Peiffer finished sixth after 4×7.5 km and ten penalty rounds.

In the victory of Sweden (a penalty round) ahead of Italy (2) and Norway (3), Kühn alone won nine penalty rounds.”I didn’t see anything. And if I can’t see anything, I don’t know what to shoot at. It would have been better to stop,”said Kühn to ARD. This opinion was shared by almost all those involved.

“This was definitely not a regular competition. Some of the athletes were no longer seen, let alone the discs,”said national coach Mark Kirchner. The Saxon Michael Rösch, who is starting for Belgium, said:”It was borderline. I’ve always looked over the diopter to see if it was a hit.”

Rees, who had already started off in the cross-country ski run for the ill Erik Lesser, revealed extreme visual problems and entered a penalty round in the second shooting.

After that the fog was compressed again, Kühn could hardly see anything during the shooting, he had to shoot four extra rounds after the reclining shooting and five extra rounds after the standing attack.

The conditions improved only marginally after the first half, but Doll managed to get a flawless insole and another one where he only needed one reloader.

“That really surprised me,”said Doll. Because Peiffer only needed two reloaders, the DSV team improved to sixth place.

The German quartet would probably not have had a great chance of a victory anyway, because besides Lesser, the final runner Simon Schempp was missing due to muscular problems.

Already on Wednesday (14.20 hrs in the LIVETICKER) the men go into the cross-country ski trail again at the next home World Cup in Ruhpolding, when the exhausting individual has to cover more than 20 km. In the Chiemgau, another relay and a mass start will be held.