Decent Pavlova's performance and Kazakevich's penalty loop
The second day of the World Cup in Hochfilzen opened with a women's relay.
The Russian national team was unable to perform as successfully as a week ago, and took eighth place.
The medalless series of Russians has already become an anniversary one and reached 30 races.
The coaching staff in the formation of the composition relied only on the sports principle.
The team included the four best girls in the sprint - Evgenia Pavlova, Irina Kazakevich, Larisa Kuklina, who celebrated her 30th birthday that day, and Ulyana Kaisheva.
The candidacy of Pavlova, who at the same time was entrusted with the first stage, could cause concern among the fans, since she took only 51st place.
But Svetlana Mironova and Tamara Voronina on Friday fired and ran even worse, and the first stage in Hochfilzen ended ahead of schedule for them - they also did not get into the pursuit.
Pavlova eventually tried to justify the trust.
Until the first shooting, she kept in the general group and did not lag behind the leaders, and at the turn she was able to immediately close all the targets.
The Russian woman returned to the track third, next to the sprint winner Dinara Alimbekova from Belarus and Italian Lisa Vittozzi.
The Norwegian Caroline Knotten was pressing behind, but Pavlova did not let her forward and herself led the group, from which Alimbekova broke away for five seconds.
At the Pavlova stand, she still used one additional cartridge, but in general she worked out shooting quite quickly.
The race was led by Knotten, German Marin Hammerschmidt and Swedish Johanna Scottheim, who did not miss a single shot.
The Russian woman was less than seven seconds behind them.
Alimbekova could not close all the targets for a long time and returned to the track much later than Pavlova.
The leadership trio tried to throw off their pursuers, but Pavlova, who lost to all of them in the sprint, ran the circle perfectly and was only a second behind.
Kazakevich was able to take the baton in fifth shortly after the Italian Irene Lardschneider.
Ingrid Tandrevold from Norway, Franziska Preuss from Germany and Lynn Persson from Sweden proved to be more efficient and immediately began to increase the gap, which had already increased to 17 seconds by the first shooting.
Kazakevich tried not to allow the gap to increase, but missed the last shot.
The Russians were already half a minute inferior to the absolutely exact national teams of Sweden and Germany, but the loss to the Norwegians was not yet critical, and thanks to the new fellow travelers, Kazakevich even managed to get closer to the leaders of the race.
The fourth shooting gave a real chance to lead the baton.
Preuss and Tandrevold went to the penalty loops, Persson closed the targets only thanks to additional rounds, and the rest of the rivals missed a lot.
But Kazakevich also failed and extended her distance by 150 meters.
The Russian national team dropped to 12th place, losing to the top three for 44 seconds.
On the last lap Kazakevich gave all her strength and after the finish she fell into the snow, but her lag only increased.
Kuklina could not globally influence the position of the team, especially since she made three mistakes while lying down and barely escaped more serious sanctions.
On the stand she managed to get together and close all the targets, but this allowed her to rise only to the ninth line.
During the course, the Russian woman was noticeably inferior to her rivals, and even the 30-year-old athlete could not keep this position.
Ulyana Kaisheva, who worked a miracle in the previous relay, started her stage tenth.
The finisher of the Russian national team did not disappoint - for the second time in a row, she quickly and easily hit all the targets.
Only she did not manage to rise to fourth place.
Kaisheva was stuck in eighth position, unable to move even higher.
The Norwegian national team won.
Tiril Eckhoff, who failed her stage a week earlier, this time provided the team with sufficient groundwork to climb to the highest place.
The French women won silver for the second time in a row.
Elvira Eberg was able to pull Sweden to the third line - the 21-year-old athlete took the baton sixth, but played back almost half a minute behind Germany.
Norway are back on top!
After disappointment in Kontiolahti, they win the women's relay in Hochfilzen 👌
🥇 @NSSF_Biathlon 🇳🇴
🥈 @FedFranceSki 🇫🇷
🥉 @SwedenBiathlon 🇸🇪
You can rewatch the competition on https://t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/ndNYGMgU
- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) December 12, 2020
Babikov's perfect shooting and Garanichev's leadership in the national team
The medal-free series of the Russian team was immediately continued.
In the men's pursuit race, the domestic biathletes had practically no chances to climb the podium due to serious lagging behind at the start formed after the sprint.
Nevertheless, the performance of the Russians left a good impression before Sunday's relay.
The reasons for optimism appeared after the first shooting.
Eduard Latypov and Yevgeny Garanichev passed the firing line cleanly and from the third ten immediately rose closer to the first.
Thanks to his accuracy, Anton Babikov won 24 places at once.
Alexander Loginov and Matvey Eliseev went into two penalty loops, but they ran in a large group of athletes, from which, at the best opportunity, they could jerk up.
Just as the Frenchman Kenten Fillon Maillet did - the silver medalist of the sprint took advantage of one mistake of the Norwegian Johannes Dale and led the race.
On the second couch, none of the Russians made a single mistake, and their ascent continued.
Garanichev climbed to 12th place, Latypov was only one position lower.
Babikov, who started 57th, was already 26th and even overtook Loginov.
Fillon Maillet, with other contenders for medals, still won about a minute or more from Russian biathletes, but getting into the top six became more and more real.
The third shooting was supposed to be decisive, especially for Latypov, who is traditionally worse shooting in a standing position.
But he also passed this firing line cleanly and climbed to tenth place - only 16 seconds remained to take part in the flower ceremony.
Garanichev still made the first misfire this season and dropped to 14th place.
Babikov, meanwhile, slowed down, but continued to shoot as accurately as the first three, which, in addition to Fillon Maillet, included his compatriot Emilien Jacquelin and Swede Sebastian Samuelsson, who lost a few seconds after falling on the first lap.
Latypov still could not finish the race with "zero" - on the last shooting he earned two penalty circles.
This threw him to the end of the second decade.
The rest of the Russians no longer made mistakes, and Babikov became one of the four biathletes who cleanly passed the entire race.
Alas, the successes on the range were not matched by good speed.
On the last lap, only Loginov ran well relative to the leaders of the race, but in the end he became only 21st, losing one position to himself.
The best result in the team was shown by Garanichev, who took 14th place, and Babikov dropped to 31st.
At the same time, according to the net time of the race, excluding the starting gaps, he became the seventh.
Eliseev and Latypov finished 19th and 24th respectively.
For other biathletes, clean shooting brought not just mean cup points, but real medals.
Fillon Maillet finally celebrated the victory and became the sixth biathlete to win personal gold - the same number of different triumphs were in the entire last season.
Jacquelin kept the second place, and Dale returned to the third after an unsuccessful start of the race.
The World Cup leader Johannes Boe also claimed bronze until the last, but one mistake at the final stage and three in total did not allow the Norwegian to rise to the podium.
Les Bleus strike back - the @FedFranceSki team celebrates the first victory of the season 🎉🙌
🥇 @ quentinfillon @ FedFranceSki 🇫🇷
🥈 @ EmilienJck @ FedFranceSki 🇫🇷
🥉 Johannes Dale @NSSF_Biathlon 🇳🇴
You can rewatch the # HOC20 men's pursuit on https: //t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/dlFZkD9rCh
- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) December 12, 2020