Against the picturesque backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, the last sprint race of his biathlon career went really wrong for Benedikt Doll in bright sunshine.
The 2017 world champion had to do four penalty laps – in the end, the 33-year-old only managed a disappointing 23rd place in his final ten kilometers in Canmore, Canada – making him the worst of the German team. Doll didn’t come to the television interview.
In the end, the Black Forester, who is ending his career after the season, was a whopping 2:25.6 minutes behind the dominantly victorious Johannes Thingnes Bö. This means that the starting position for the pursuit on Saturday (10:10 p.m./ZDF and Eurosport) is anything but promising for the last individual world champion in the German team.
Norway’s superstar Johannes Thingnes Bö remained flawless in his 74th World Cup victory ahead of the Italian Tommaso Giacomel (1 mistake/1:02.7 minutes) and was also in his own league when it came to running. His brother Tarjei secured the small crystal ball for the sprint discipline ranking in third place (1 mistake/1:04.2 minutes), but lost ground in the battle for the overall World Cup and is now 92 points behind Johannes with two races to go. “Little brother big ball, big brother little ball. That’s a good combination,” said Tarjei Bö on ZDF.
Kühn “very satisfied” with seventh place
The best German was Johannes Kühn in seventh place (1/1:20.4 minutes). “Overall, I’m very happy. I knew that the routes were tough for me. The standing mistake is a bit annoying,” said Kühn. Danilo Riethmüller gave a warning and came ninth (1:22.4) after one penalty. Philipp Nawrath finished the race in twelfth place after three mistakes (1:49.1 minutes). After an extra lap, Justus Strelow ended up in 16th position (1:53.1), Roman Rees was 18th (2:01.5) with one mistake. Philipp Horn (3/2:07.8) took 20th place.
For Doll, who won two sprints this season, the race was over before it had even begun. The third-placed World Cup individual player from Nove Mesto missed the first two targets – Doll noticed too late that the wind conditions had changed compared to when he was shooting. After his correction he scored, but Doll was already out of the fight for the top spots – especially since he also made two mistakes while standing.
In terms of running, he gave it his all until the end at the strenuous altitude of 1,400 meters and secured the seventh-best running time. In the pursuit and the final mass start on Sunday, Doll will try to reverse the poor sprint result. He had already succeeded in this in Oslo, where he achieved the worst result of his career in the individual, coming 74th, and then came second in the mass start.
Meanwhile, Janina Hettich-Walz goes into the hunting race on Saturday (6.10 p.m./ZDF and Eurosport) in seventh place, 31 seconds behind sprint winner Lisa Vittozzi, as the most promising German.
