The biathletes around Olympic champion Arnd Peiffer missed the podium on their return to the World Cup routine. In the first race after the winter games in Pyeongchang, Peiffer (Clausthal-Zellerfeld) finished fifth in the sprint over 10 km in Kontiolahti in Finland after a penalty lap as the best German. The 30-year-old missed the winner Anton Schipulin from Russia by 27.4 seconds.
“I would have liked to have met him,”Peiffer said on ZDF about his misfire:”But I think 90 percent of the hits are not quite so wrong. It was a solid race, a solid performance.”
Erik Lesser (Frankenhain/+30.6/1 penalty round) in seventh place and Simon Schempp (Uhingen/+32.0/2) in eighth place completed a good result for the German Ski Association.
Schipulin, who had not been invited to the Winter Games in Pyeongchang as part of the state doping scandal by the International Olympic Committee, stayed clear under floodlight at the shooting range and finished 5.8 seconds ahead of Latvian Andrejs Rastorgujevs (0 penalty rounds). Third place went to Frenchman Quentin Fillon Maillet (+17.3/0).
The five-time Olympic champion Martin Fourcade (France), who holds the lead in the overall World Cup, had abandoned a start shortly before the race due to gastrointestinal problems.
On Friday, the women’s doubles Olympic gold medallist Laura Dahlmeier (Partenkirchen) will also be competing in her first race after the Winter Games, when at 5.45 pm the sprint over 7.5 km is scheduled. After the relays in single-mixed and mixed on Saturday (from 13.40 hrs) the two mass starts on Sunday (starting at 13.30 hrs) complete the World Cup in Kontiolahi.