THE GERMANS VICTORIOUS IN THE RELAYS RACE
The only sure thing in the Men 4 × 7.5 km Relays race in the 8th round of the World Cup in NMNM was the performance of the German team, as great dramas played in the starting field that they left behind. Russian team took the silver in the end, and the bronze went to Norway, despite their three penalty loops. Czech biathletes finished on 10th place, ahead of the Swedish team who had been silver at the World Championships in Pokljuka. The conditions were difficult since fresh snow had covered the track shortly before the race started in Nové Město na Moravě.
Today, German biathletes proved that their meagre performance in Pokljuka had been just an episode, and were in the lead from the very beginning of the race all the way to its finish. Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll and Arnd Peiffer gave Philipp Nawrath advantage of over 40 seconds, and the racer who had been active in the IBU Cup for most of the season feared no famous rivals, and gave them no chance to prevent his team from getting the gold.
The French team who were behind the Germans made mistakes after the last changeover: the world champion Emilien Jacquelin experienced a nightmarish prone shooting, spending eight rounds and striking one single target! The Norwegian performance was not excellent, either, as Dale and both Boe brothers each headed to a penalty loop! This opened a window of opportunity, and the Russians were the ones who took it. Their last man, Eduard Laytpov, achieved the fastest time of all biathletes in the last section, and got the Russian team from seventh place to the silver position! In the end, the Norwegians were third. Surprisingly, the fourth place went to Slovenian team, French were the fifth, and Austrians sixth.
“It is a great feeling. My teammates were excellent, each of them did their best both on the track and in the shooting range. All I had to do was to bring it home,” Philipp Nawrath commented on the first place of his team in relays race, which was a feat that the Germans had not achieved in more than four years. “From the very beginning, I kept on telling myself that I needed to concentrate and focus. I needed to forget that anything else but targets in front of me. Well, this I did manage,” the twenty-eight-year old biathlete from Ruhpolding added.
The Czech team had a great start. Michal Krčmář was third at the first changeover, lagging only six seconds behind the Germans. Ondřej Moravec, the most experienced of the Czechs, did not shoot well in the prone position, and took a penalty loop, which meant that the dream of a good result started to crumble for Czechs. After two changeovers, they were on tenth position. Milan Žemlička and Adam Václavík did not manage to improve the standing.
„All my rounds went to the right side. These are mistakes that I have been dealing with for two months, since Oberhof. I am sorry, we started well into the race,“ Ondřej Moravec said. It is most likely that the Friday’s race was the last relays race of his career.
Author: Tomáš Hermann
Photo: Michal Jilka
