Beyond the top ten: Russian biathletes were left without medals in the sprint at the World Cup in Kontiolahti

Return of the yellow jersey to Johannes Boe

Johannes Boe won the sprint race at the first stage of the Biathlon World Cup.

The Norwegian did not miss a single shot and overtook Sweden's Sebastian Samuelsson by 44.1 seconds.

The best of the Russians, Alexander Loginov, finished 12th with one penalty loop.

All the strongest biathletes preferred to start in the first group, without waiting for the snow to fall and the track, which was already too soft, would become completely impassable.

Three Russians were in the top ten of the protocol at once: Matvey Eliseev opened the sprint race, Eduard Latypov and Alexander Loginov left the starting town soon after.

Norwegian brothers Tarjei and Johannes Boe also started early, and against their background the Russians immediately began to lose in speed.

But the first line of fire allowed them to stay among the leaders.

Latypov, Loginov and Eliseev shot cleanly while lying down.

Johannes Boe bypassed Latypov, who was walking third, by almost 17 seconds, and German Arnd Peiffer wedged himself between the Russian biathletes, finishing fourth, followed by Loginov and Eliseev.

In order to hope for medals, it was imperative to avoid mistakes in the second shooting.

But this task turned out to be impossible for all three Russians.

Eliseev, Latypov and Loginov made one mistake each.

Simultaneously with failures at the shooting range, the speed of the athletes began to drop.

Many of those who also missed ran faster, and the Frenchman Emilien Jacquelin, even with two uncovered targets, was located above all the Russians.

Johannes Boe completely destroyed all rivals, winning with clean shooting for more than half a minute from each.

He didn’t seem to have run a 20-kilometer race the day before, which is usually followed by at least one day off.

After the second line, there was still hope that Loginov would at least finish in the top ten, but the speed of the leader of the Russian national team continued to fall.

In addition, the expectation that those starting under the last numbers would have difficulties with the track was not justified.

Such athletes included the Norwegian Vetle Shostad Christiansen and the Swede Martin Ponsiluoma, between whom a dispute over bronze broke out.

Ponsiluoma turned out to be four seconds faster, and two Swedish athletes went up to the podium at once - the second all this time was Sebastian Samuelsson, who became the silver medalist in the World Cup for the first time.

From the very first place, no one could displace Johannes Boe, who took the yellow jersey of the leader from Sturla Kholm Legrade at the end of the race.

Loginov eventually took 12th place, down two lines compared to the individual race.

He explained such results by missing control trainings, but by the second stage of the World Cup he promised to improve his performance.

“I hope it will be easier in a week.

The bunch is heavy, an individual and a sprint, 30 km in two days.

I think it will further disperse me.

You need to rest, recover - and further into battle.

56 seconds behind Byo's feet?

I had a second developmental job, lacking a little speed, did not have time to dial.

Not because I wanted to, but simply adjustments to the preparation, it was not possible to carry out control starts, "Loginov said in an interview with Match TV.

Eliseev and Latypov finished in the second ten, becoming 14th and 20th in the sprint.

Semyon Suchilov, who started at number 100, also made one mistake, but barely caught the cup points, taking 36th place.

Pyotr Pashchenko showed 62nd time, losing more than three minutes to Be Jr.

The mistakes of the Russians and the first start of Mironova

At the start of the women's sprint, it would appear that shooting conditions have deteriorated dramatically compared to the men's race.

Several athletes who started before everyone else made mistakes en masse.

Immediately from the contenders for medals, the Norwegian Tiril Eckhoff crossed out herself, having not covered three targets on the bench.

But later it became calm at the shooting range, and clean shooting became the norm for the competitors.

However, the Russian biathletes failed to maintain the general trend.

In the first shooting, Larisa Kuklina, Ulyana Kaisheva, Svetlana Mironova and Tatyana Voronina missed, while Evgenia Pavlova made a mistake twice.

Only Irina Kazakevich managed to work cleanly, but neither she nor her teammates had the necessary speed to fight for medals.

After lying down, the density of the results was incredible, and Kazakevich did not even manage to stay in the second ten.

Mironova managed to rehabilitate a little for such an unsuccessful start, who had not performed in the individual race the day before.

In standing shooting, she was accurate and on the last loop threw all her strength to get as high as possible in the final protocol.

She took 18th place, and this was the best result among Russians.

Hannah Oeberg was an example to follow in this race.

The Swede dominated in the same way as Johannes Boe did earlier in the men's competition.

She demonstrated not only accurate shooting, but also excellent speed on the track.

With every kilometer, she broke away from the Norwegian Marthe Olsbu and won the sprint for the first time in her career.

The third place was taken by another representative of Norway, Caroline Knotten.