The Russian women's national biathlon team repeated the result of the men in the relay in Oberhof.
Evgenia Pavlova, Larisa Kuklina, Svetlana Mironova and Ulyana Kaisheva took fourth place.
The first medal this season was quite real, but Pavlova's unsuccessful shooting at the first stage did not allow her to count on the podium.
When forming the relay team, the coaching staff of the Russian national team was guided by the results of the previous race.
It included the first four athletes according to the results of the sprint, and even the arrangement of the stages turned out to be such that the worst of them started the race and the best finished.
So Evgenia Pavlova had to start, who in the two previous relay races was also a striker in the national team.
After the sprint, the 27-year-old complained about the too busy racing schedule, but she initially showed no signs of fatigue in the relay.
Pavlova in the general group ran to the first firing line and closed all the targets in one fell swoop.
While the Norwegian Ingrid Tandrevold tried to avoid the penalty loop, the Russian woman returned to the track first and continued to lead her closest pursuers until the next shooting.
But after the stand, Pavlova's leadership ended.
Just like in the Sunday super mix, she started making one mistake after another.
The Russian woman went to the penalty loop and again made up Tandrevold's company.
Sitting on her back, Pavlova overtook several rivals at a distance and returned to the top ten.
She passed the baton to Larisa Kuklina, 47 seconds away from the leading Italian team.
In general, if you leave the penalty loop outside the brackets, Pavlova performed well at her stage - she showed the fifth time in sheer speed.
Kuklina also looked dignified against the background of her current rivals.
Leading a group of four biathletes, she was able to get closer to the leading Frenchwoman Anais Chevalier-Boucher for a few seconds in front of her bench.
The Russian woman made one mistake, but most of the girls had much more mistakes - the Norwegian Ida Lien spent all the extra cartridges, while the Ukrainian Julia Dzhima and the Italian Irene Lardschneider earned two penalties each.
Kuklina moved up to sixth place, and she was already 27 seconds short of the top three.
On the second lap, Kuklina had to work alone, which is much more difficult than running in a company.
But this did not affect the shooting skills of the biathlete - Kuklina worked perfectly on the stance, while the Austrian Julia Schweiger, who was ahead of her, extended her distance by 150 meters, and the German Janina Hettich spent four rounds on one target.
It was with her that Kuklina went to her last lap 20 seconds away from the representatives of France, Belarus and Sweden.
Kuklina passed her stage to Svetlana Mironova, and Hettich to Denise Herrman.
The German woman immediately broke away from the Russian athlete, and she decided to go to the shooting range at her own pace.
This did not help to avoid mistakes - Mironova delayed due to one miss and rolled back to sixth place, letting Canadian Megan Banks go ahead.
But on the other hand, the Russian woman was already 11 seconds away from the Swede Elvira Eberg, who closed the top three, that is, the chances of medals still increased.
The second shooting worsened the position of the Russian team again.
The rivals gave Mironova a chance to come out ahead, especially the Frenchwoman Justine Breza-Boucher, who was leading in the race - she went to two penalties.
But the Russian woman made two misfires on the same target, again returning to sixth place.
But when the shooting was over, Mironova accelerated as much as possible at a distance.
She began to rapidly close the gap with Oeberg and surrendered her stage fourth right after the Swede.
Kaisheva could not only bring the national team bronze, but even swing for victory - only half a minute separated her from the Belarusian Elena Kruchinkina and the German Franziska Preuss.
But the Russian woman, following the example of her friends, did not force events and let the Swedish Hanna Eberg and the Czech Luciya Kharvatova go ahead.
This helped her to calmly approach the line and from the first attempt to close all the targets on the prone.
True, Eberg the elder shot a little faster, so that 13 seconds were separated from the first three Kaisheva.
The second shooting was also successful for Kaisheva - in the women's relay races this season, she never let the team down even with one mistake.
But Eberg and Preuss did the same on the counter.
Kruchinkina made two misfires, but she was too far from the Russian woman.
The infallible Kaisheva tried to overtake the third-placed Swede in the World Cup to the last, but was only able to close the gap to seven seconds.
The Russian team finished fourth for the second time.
For the first time in two years, the German national team won the victory, and the Belarusians won silver.
What a thrilling women's relay - and the @skiverband squad takes it in style!
# OBE21 💪
🥇🇩🇪 @skiverband
🥈🇧🇾 @bybiathlon
🥉🇸🇪 @SwedenBiathlonhttps: //t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/L06FTx4hcv
- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) January 16, 2021