The return of Akimova and Pavlova's accuracy

The medal-free series of the Russian national biathlon team continued to grow at the fourth stage of the World Cup, held in Hochfilzen.

As a result of the women's sprint, she has already reached 35 races.

While the Norwegians reaped a full harvest of awards on Friday, the Russians' best result was 18th place Evgenia Pavlova.

The chances of success for half of the team faded after the first shooting.

The functional state of the female athletes now does not allow them to count on success even in the event of one miss.

Irina Kazakevich, Svetlana Mironova and Ulyana Kaisheva made five mistakes for three at the first shooting range, immediately rolling away from the leaders of the race.

All of them were unable to recoup in the standing position and again left several targets uncovered.

Mironova tried to give her all at a distance and from 49th place after the rack reached the point zone, eventually becoming 39th.

Kaisheva lost nine positions to her teammate.

Kazakevich, who earned four penalties, ended up not having enough one and a half seconds to qualify for Saturday's pursuit.

Quite different results were for those who had at least one firing line cleanly.

The team's model of accuracy was Pavlova, who finished the sprint with zero penalties.

After the first shooting, she was even ten seconds away from the top three, but her speed ultimately did not allow her to fight for a medal.

With each kilometer, Pavlova sank lower and lower and, as a result, was limited to the 18th line in the protocol.

The Russian lost more than a minute to the winner, Tiril Eckhoff, despite the fact that the Norwegian had one penalty loop.

Anastasia Goreeva performed very well for herself.

The 21-year-old, who is still settling into the World Cup, scored her first points by finishing in 24th place.

One miss on the second shooting prevented her from getting higher.

Tatyana Akimova was the last of the Russians to enter the fight, for whom this race became her debut in the season.

The result of the 30-year-old athlete almost surpassed the wildest expectations of the fans.

She worked cleanly on the bench and was only 8.4 seconds behind the leader in this segment, American Claire Egan.

On the second lap, Akimova was entrenched in the top ten and had real chances for a medal and at least for hitting the mass start, it was enough to close all five targets again.

But the standing shooting let the Russian woman down.

Two misses pushed her back to 32nd place.

On the last loop, Akimova no longer ran in one leg with the leaders and dropped one more line.

However, with her result in the first race after the birth of a child, she really encouraged fans for future competitions.

The best on this day were the Norwegian biathletes.

Eckhoff, who celebrated the second victory, was defeated by the infallible Ingrid Tandrevold in less than eight seconds.

World Cup leader Marthe Olsbu-Roiseland won bronze and retained the yellow jersey of the season leader.

New day, new Norwegian podium sweep!

🇳🇴 🥳 @TirilEckhoff wins the women's sprint in Hochfilzen!

@NSSF_Biathlon



🥇🇳🇴 Tiril Eckhoff


🥈🇳🇴 Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold


🥉🇳🇴 Marte Olsbu Roeiseland



You can rewatch all competitions on https://t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/5aAqIDPbXM

- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) December 18, 2020

Garanichev's Norwegian excellence and accuracy

The men's race took place the day before and opened the fourth stage of the World Cup.

The competition ended with an even more grandiose triumph for the Norwegian national team - they took four first places at once.

The Russians had no reason to be happy again, although the results of the relay gave cause for optimism.

The best in the team was Evgeny Garanichev, who took 13th position.

Garanichev confirmed his high class in shooting and did not make a single mistake, while he worked very quickly at the shooting range.

But in speed, the bronze medalist of the Sochi Olympics still remains uncompetitive.

Garanichev's move was only 28th, inferior even to some teammates.

However, he has progress in the results, and the fans can still hope that at least in the second half of the season and at the World Championships he will fight for medals.

If it had not been for the skipping of the first two stages, Garanichev would definitely have been the best Russian in the overall standings.

Now they still have Alexander Loginov, for whom the sprint was at first very successful.

He was the leader before the first shooting, but one miss added about 20 seconds to the world champion.

After that Loginov also dropped his speed, and could not get ready for standing shooting.

He finished only 17th.

It can be noted that by the move he showed the ninth result, but the gap of 55 seconds from the Norwegian Johannes Boe is still quite significant.

Eduard Latypov was supposed to show good speed, but this time he did not look like himself, and two misses on the bench sent him to the final 30th place.

Anton Babikov with his performance strongly resembled Garanichev - he shot even faster and just as accurately, but ran much slower.

This resulted in 34th position at the finish line.

Matvey Eliseev barely managed to get into the points zone and took 38th place, Said Karimulla Khalili did not make it into the pursuit, becoming 73rd.

The Norwegians set an example for the rest of the world.

The best among them was Sturla Legrade, whose victory in the first individual race of the season should no longer be considered something sensational.

The 23-year-old athlete did not make a single mistake and walked around Johannes Dale by eight seconds.

Johannes Boe, after a short break, returned to the podium, but he could not have been content with bronze if he had not made two mistakes on the bench.

The completed relay quartet was supplemented by Vetle Shostad Christiansen.

In terms of sheer speed, the Norwegians took the entire top five at all - an excellent move was also shown by Tarja Bo, but with two misfires he was lower than Garanichev.

Sturla Holm Laegreid becomes the first man to win two competitions this winter - it's a @NSSF_Biathlon quadruple victory in the Hochfilzen!

🤯



🥇 Sturla Holm Laegreid🇳🇴


🥈 Johannes Dale🇳🇴


🥉 Johannes Thingnes Boe🇳🇴



Rewatch the men's sprint on https://t.co/bk5aBBaMLgpic.twitter.com/jeUA7W5pvy

- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) December 17, 2020