Biathlon: Doll and Kühn close to the podium at Fourcade victory

At the end of the Biathlon World Cup in Antholz, Benedikt Doll and Johannes Kühn convinced with their best results of the season. In the last race before the Winter Games in Pyeongchang (9. till 25. February) sprint world champion Doll came fourth as the best German in the mass start over 15 km and missed his first podium position of the winter only just barely. Kühn followed in fifth place.

“I can, actually, but it doesn’t always work out 100 percent. It worked once today. The direction is right, so we continue,”said Kühn, who was the last of a total of twelve German ski hunters (six women, six men) to secure the Olympic norm.

The six-time overall World Cup winner Martin Fourcade was once again in a class of his own on Sunday. Despite two penalty rounds, the Frenchman secured his sixth victory of the season, standing in the 18th place. Series races on the podium.

This was followed by the two Norwegians Tarjei Bö (2 penalty rounds/+2.8 seconds) and Erlend Bjöntegaard (2/+5.1).

On the third-placed Bjöntegaard, Doll (2 penalty rounds) were missing, whose best ranking of the season was the 8th place. in the pursuit at Annecy, 10.9 seconds. Kühn, who also missed twice, had finished ninth at the World Cup season opener in Östersund.

Erik Lesser and Arnd Peiffer, however, weakened at the shooting range, both missed four times. Lesser turned 17th, Peiffer finished 19th. In the sprint on Friday, Peiffer had given the German biathlon men their first podium place of the year, in the pursuit he had only just missed the podium in fourth place.

World champion Simon Schempp did not compete due to persistent back problems. The 29-year-old had already left South Tyrol prematurely and will be examined in detail on Monday in Munich.

After the strenuous home games in Oberhof and Ruhpolding as well as the exhausting dress rehearsal in Antholz, the German biathletes are now allowed to recover and gather new strength. Before the Winter Games a training camp in Hochfilzen will be held for several days before the 5th Winter Games. February the plane to South Korea takes off.