France wins women's relay with superiority
Start-to-finish victory for Les Bleus: The French women underlined their gold medal ambitions at the BMW IBU Biathlon World Cup in Oberhof around four weeks before the Olympic Games. In the sold-out ARENA am Rennsteig, France celebrated a superior victory ahead of Norway (+53.7 seconds) and Germany (+1:28.4 minutes).
First French skier Lou Jeanmonnot put her team in the lead early on, while Germany fell back to 14th place after Selina Grotian received a penalty loop in the first standing shooting. ‘As soon as I stood there, I thought to myself: this could be difficult, my hands were like two blocks of ice,’ explained Grotian after her race. ‘The trigger wasn't quite there because I had no feeling in my hands.’
Julia Tannheimer led Germany back up to fifth place, but had to reload five times, in consequence of which the distance to Oceane Michelon (France) grew further. Instead, Norway moved back within striking distance because Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold also had to complete a penalty lap.
In the third group, Janina Hettich-Walz showed off all of her experience. With only two reloads and a strong skiing performance, she handed over in second place to the final skier Franziska Preuß – ahead of Norway, but still one and a half minutes behind the French. The strong skier Justine Braisaz-Bouchet (0+1) also left no doubt about the safe victory.
In the battle for second place it came down to a showdown between Franziska Preuß and Maren Kirkeeide, who is third in the overall World Cup standings. Like the Norwegian, Preuß shot cleanly in the first round. The decision came about at the last shooting. While Julia Simon was able to relax and enjoy the final lap for France, Preuß and Kirkeeide battled it out – with the Scandinavian coming out on top. Preuß needed three reloads in the standing position, while the young Norwegian once again showed her nerves of steel and cleared all targets without using any extra cartridges.
In the end, the shooting performance was the deciding factor in Les Bleus' clear victory. France's strong shooters only needed eight reloads and were the only top team to avoid penalty loops, while Norway (+7 reloads) and Germany (+13 reloads) each had to complete one penalty loop. The co-favourites from Sweden also had major problems in fifth place. The relay winners from Hochfilzen incurred two penalty loops and were set back right at the start when lead shooter Anna Magnusson tore the strap on her rifle during the prone shooting. She lost valuable time trying to fix it and fell significantly behind.