Extension of the medalless streak and unexpected victory for Olsbu-Roiseland
The last day of the World Cup in Hochfilzen began with the women's pursuit.
This race automatically lengthened the non-mediocre streak of the Russian team to 32 starts - the athletes had to leave the track too late to seriously count on awards.
The girls could please the fans only by their desire to recoup and rise to higher places.
Irina Kazakevich and Larisa Kuklina tried to show themselves in this.
They both cleanly passed the first shooting and immediately moved up seven and ten positions, respectively.
Ulyana Kaisheva and Evgenia Pavlova made a mistake and only lagged behind the race leader and sprint winner Dinara Alimbekova from Belarus.
But the second line of fire has already proved to be problematic for the Russians.
Only Pavlova, who closed the top 40 at that time, managed to close all the targets.
Kazakevich and Kuklina retreated to 27th and 28th places, losing more than a minute to the group of medal contenders.
In addition to Alimbekova, it included Italian Dorothea Wierer, Swede Elvira Oeberg and Norwegian Marthe Olsbu-Røiseland - her speed at a distance allowed her to stay in the lead even with one miss and a fourth starting number.
Kazakevich was rehabilitated at the first stance and returned to the top 15, and her teammates finally moved away from her and no longer even got to the top twenty.
At the last turn, the 23-year-old biathlete still missed the second in the race, but she still finished in a rather high 14th place for herself - for her this result was the second best in her career.
Kazakevich became the eighth in pure time.
The rest of the Russians did not give even such reasons for pride.
Kuklina took 23rd place, Kaisheva became 27th, and Pavlova was two lines away from the points zone.
The victory in the race was rather unexpectedly won by Olsbu-Roiseland.
Despite the fact that she once again made a mistake on the last frontier, and Alimbekova was accurate all the time, the Norwegian was ahead in the last two laps and, as a result, even headed the overall standings of the World Cup.
Frenchwoman Julie Simon also unexpectedly rose to third place.
She made three penalties, but in the last meters forced the former owner of the yellow jersey Hanna Oeberg from Sweden, who won 25 positions thanks to clean shooting, to surrender.
Marte Olsbu Roeiseland wins the Hochfilzen Pursuit - and will be in yellow next week.
🎊🙌
🥇 Marte Olsbu Roeiseland @NSSF_Biathlon 🇳🇴
🥈 Dzinara Alimbekava @bybiathlon 🇧🇾
🥉 Julia Simon @FedFranceSki 🇫🇷
You can rewatch the women's pursuit on https://t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/zE7F5ypH
- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) December 13, 2020
Swedish victory and offensive fourth place of Russia
In the men's relay, which closed the World Cup in Hochfilzen, the chances for a prize were very real.
Saturday's pursuit showed that the Russian national team has a fairly even line-up that does not allow serious shooting failures.
In speed, domestic biathletes are still far from ideal, but in the relay everyone needs to go only 7.5 km, and a strong lag could be avoided.
Right before the start of the race in Hochfilzen, it snowed, which no one expected during the zeroing.
All the miners, including Matvey Eliseev, had to try hard to avoid mistakes.
The Russian coped with this task almost perfectly - he broke only the last shot while lying down, but quickly corrected the mistake.
At the stand, he was generally the only leader among the leaders who avoided misfires and led the race with 12 seconds of advantage.
The problem of the last lap with Eliseev did not disappear anywhere, and the pursuers caught up with him after a few hundred meters.
The Russian kept in the general group for some time, but still caught the six-second gap and passed the baton to Evgeny Garanichev fifth.
The bronze medalist of the Sochi Olympics was not prevented from returning back, and he came to the firing line together with the Norwegian Johannes Dahle, the German Roman Res, the Swede Jesper Nelin, the French Emilien Jacquelin, the Austrian Simon Eder and the Finn Tero Seppälä.
Garanichev quickly closed all targets and retained his place in the leadership group.
The snow all this time only intensified, but it was partly in the hands of the Russian - it was a guarantee that the leading group would not disintegrate and did not throw it off.
But it became even more difficult to shoot while standing.
Only Res and Eder managed to avoid additional rounds.
Garanichev, with two misfires, returned to the track fifth in 23 seconds from the German-Austrian duo.
Jacquelin was much more unlucky - he earned two penalty loops and failed the second relay in a row.
Eduard Latypov felt the strength to fight at a distance and on the first lap he closed the gap.
This jerk practically did not interfere with shooting.
While lying down, the Russian lingered on only one target, as did the German Benedict Doll.
Together they were 15 seconds behind Martin Ponsiluoma of Sweden and Tarjei Boe of Norway.
Inspired, Latypov decided not to drag Dolly on himself and staked out the third place before the decisive standing shooting.
Latypov, Bo and Ponsiluoma used up almost all the extra cartridges, but avoided penalty loops.
From behind their backs, Doll rose to the top, who was absolutely accurate.
Latypov needed to speed up as much as possible and win back the ten-second lag behind the German, but at that moment he was covered with fatigue.
From Doll, who ran noticeably worse than the representatives of Sweden and Norway, the Russian was six seconds behind by the end of the last lap.
At the fourth stage, the fight for victory was continued by the Swede Sebastian Samuelsson and the Norwegian Johannes Boe, and Alexander Loginov set off in pursuit of the German Philip Horn.
The first run at the shooting range finally allowed the Russian team to return to third place - Loginov closed all the targets at once, and Horn used two additional cartridges.
The final shooting could stir the entire leading four.
Samuelsson and Boe gave their pursuers a chance with their mistakes, the Norwegian even ran into the penalty loop.
While he was working out his punishment, Loginov came to the firing line, but left it after Horn.
The German worked perfectly and was eight seconds away from the Scandinavian duo of leaders, and the Russian went to run the extra 150 meters.
As in the previous week, domestic biathletes finished in fourth place, and the medal-free series increased by one more point.
Germany also repeated its result from the previous stage in Kontiolahti and won the bronze.
And Sweden and Norway changed places - this time the reigning Olympic champions celebrated their success.
Just like in 2018, @SwedenBiathlon win the men's relay in Hochfilzen!
🎊
🥇🇸🇪 @SwedenBiathlon
🥈🇳🇴 @NSSF_Biathlon
🥉🇩🇪 @skiverband
Rewatch the men's relay on https://t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/X6FFw1fb79
- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) December 13, 2020