Olympic sprint champion Arnd Peiffer (Clausthal-Zellerfeld) and reigning sprint world champion Benedikt Doll (Breitnau) missed the podium at the Biathlon World Cup in Pokljuka. While Peiffer only managed a weak 30th place after two shooting errors over a distance of 10 km, Doll finished fifth after a shooting mistake.
“Somehow it didn’t work out, the prone shooting was a bit frustrating, it hailed my result,” said Peiffer to ARD. Doll said, “If you look at the runtimes, I guess it was okay. But it was still a bit difficult from a feeling point of view and I think that more would have been possible.”
Despite one penalty round, the victory went to the Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Bö, who had landed just behind superstar Martin Fourcade (France) in last season’s overall World Cup. Bö finished clear ahead of Antonin Guigonnat (France/+16.1 seconds) and Alexander Loginow (Russia/16.4 seconds). Doll was missing 16.4 seconds to third place.
The other Germans landed far behind Peiffer. Simon Schempp (Uhingen/40.), Erik Lesser (44.), Philipp Horn (both Frankenhain/46.) and Johannes Kühn (Reit im Winkl/48.) take a lot of backlog into the pursuit race.
The first World Cup of this season will continue on Saturday with the women’s sprint (14.15 hrs/ARD and Eurosport) before the pursuit races (from 11.45 hrs) will be held on Sunday.