A THRILLING FINALE IN THE WOMEN RELAY COMPETITION: ELVIRA OEBERG GOT THE GOLD FOR SWEDES
In an epic battle for the finish line, Swedish women were victorious in the Women 4 × 6km Relay Competition that opened the 8th round of the Biathlon World Cup in Nové Město na Moravě. The silver went to Belarus, the bronze to the French relays team. The race was a disaster for Czech women, as they did not fare well both in the shooting range and on the track, and finished 18th of 21 teams that started into the race.
The American team was in the lead after the first stop at the shooting range. Swiss team replaced them after second shooting. However, Ingrid Tandrevold got her team – the front-runner for the race – into the lead before the first changeover. The next Norwegian, Tiril Eckhoff, kept the lead, just as Ida Liene after her prone position shooting. The young racer made some mistakes when shooting standing, though, and had to run a penalty loop. This resulted in the last of the Norwegian team, Marte Olsbu Roiseland, starting into the last leg from fifth position, losing nearly 37 second to the Swedish team.
Four teams started into the last leg in a close contact with one another. The leading Swedes with Elvira Oeberg were about seven seconds ahead of the remaining trio: the teams of USA, Italy and Belarus. Jelena Kruchinkinova of Belarus was in the lead after the last shooting and managed to keep a slight advantage of Elvira Oeberg until the final climb to the stadium. However, this is where the Swede accelerated heavily and drew ahead of the tired Belarussian in the final metres. Julia Simon got the third place for France.
The Norwegian team who had been seen as the front-runner by many, finished only fifth after the Ukraine, and were thus eliminated from the battle for victory in the overall World Cup standing of Relays. The first place in the season-long contest goes to the winners of today’s race, who surpassed Germans on the second place only thanks to having one extra victory.
The Czech team had a dreadful start: Jessica Jislová reloaded three times both in prone and standing positions. This resulted in getting 19th to the changeover, losing more than 90 seconds. Eva Puskarčíková missed one target only, but did not improve the standing of the Czech team: still 19th. The Czechs were losing 2 minutes and 42 seconds. Markéta Davidová, the World Champion from Individual Race, had an excellent running part of the race, but she had to reload, too (once in prone position, twice in standing position). Still she managed to get the team to 15th place, and decreased the gap to the leading team. Czechs were losing 2 minutes 24 second then. Lucie Charvátová, the last from the team, started to close the gap to the Kazakh and German teams, but she did not shoot well: after two penalty loops for missed targets in prone position, she added three more for shooting in standing position. The Czech team lost five minutes on the leader, and took the final 18th place.
Author: Tomáš Hermann
Photo: Michal Jilka
