The best biathletes in the world have moved from the German Oberhof to the Italian Anterselva, where the world championship was held last year.
The first in the competition program was the women's individual race, in which medals were previously played only at the starting stage in Finnish Kontiolahti.
Russian athletes were among the first to begin to conquer the 15-kilometer distance.
Larisa Kuklina ran away from the starting town at number three, and Evgenia Pavlova at number seven.
For her, it was her debut on the track in Anterselva - she had never competed in the Italian midlands before.
A few minutes after the Russians, the main favorites entered the fight, hoping to finish early and avoid snowfall.
However, this calculation did not come true - the track and the shooting range were swept up almost immediately after the start of the race.
Kuklina and Pavlova were ready for precipitation and passed the first line cleanly.
They briefly seized the lead, until the World Cup leader Martha Olsbu-Roiseland from Norway, due to their speed, did not pass them.
Other famous athletes could not move the Russians because of mistakes - Norwegian Tiril Eckhoff and German Franziska Preuss did not escape this fate.
Good start for the yellow bib - Marte Olsbu Roeiseland takes the lead after the first prone.
How many women are going to hit the perfect score today?
What do you think?
# ANT21 🤗https: //t.co/bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com/bCKEC1Dagw
- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) January 21, 2021
While Kuklina and Pavlova were running the second lap, the snowfall intensified.
Kuklina, he did not prevent to prove himself in the first stand and close all the targets.
Pavlova, on the other hand, earned one penalty minute, due to which her advantage over her teammate turned into a 33-second gap.
Olsbu-Roiseland followed the Russians to the shooting range, and she has already made two mistakes, losing her chances for medals.
Ulyana Kaisheva started the third of the Russians.
When she arrived at the first landing, Pavlova and Kuklina were still in the top three, and Kaisheva, thanks to the error-free shooting, wedged between them.
A little later their trio was pushed aside by Italian Lisa Vittozzi and Frenchwoman Anais Chevalier-Boucher, and the fastest of them was Austrian Lisa Teresa Hauser.
Soon Svetlana Mironova appeared on the shooting range - clean shooting allowed her to rise to sixth place, and all the Russians were in the intermediate top eight.
At the second stage, Kaisheva and Mironova also closed all targets, which many foreigners did not succeed in.
They began to yield only to Hauser, Chevalier-Boucher, and a little later, another Frenchwoman, Justine Breza-Chevalier.
By that time, Kuklina and Pavlova had already been pushed far away from the leading positions, but two Russians at the end of half the race were still contenders for medals.
True, they did not demonstrate the same accuracy at the next firing lines.
Kaisheva immediately made two mistakes in the third shooting, Mironova made one mistake at each stop.
Mironova's last misfire cost her a medal - even with one penalty minute she claimed bronze, but in the end she dropped to seventh place.
Mironova even ended up behind Pavlova, who also made two misses in the race, but turned out to be faster in the move.
The positions of the Russians after the fourth shooting were preserved at the finish.
Pavlova became the sixth, Mironova, in a dispute with the Belarusian Dinara Alimbekova, snatched the seventh place.
Two more lines below was Kaisheva.
Each of the Russian women could have won on condition of clean shooting, and one extra closed target would have brought bronze and would have allowed to interrupt the women's team's mediocre streak, which at that time had 38 races.
However, getting three Russian women in the top ten at once could also be considered a success.
Pavlova, Mironova and Kaisheva not only strengthened the position of the national team in the Nations Cup, but also secured their participation in the Saturday mass start.
Kuklina, with one mistake, showed the 14th result and also qualified for the race from the general start, and at the same time allowed the coaching staff not to worry about the composition for the relay - no other country delegated four athletes in the top 15 at once.
Two more Russian biathletes could not attract the attention they deserve.
Irina Kazakevich made one mistake on the first three lines, and on the last one completely closed only two targets.
With six minutes of penalty, she finished 65th.
Tatiana Akimova in the first race after the second return to the national team at first performed with dignity, but also made three mistakes at the final shooting range.
Before that, she had already made two mistakes, and for her the final was 54th place.
The victory in the individual race was won by Lisa Teresa Hauser - she was rewarded for failure in the last mass start in Oberhof, when the Austrian was supposed to win a medal, but fell shortly before the finish line.
The second place in Anterselva was taken by Ukrainian Julia Dzhima - the key to her success was flawless shooting.
Anais Chevalier-Boucher missed out on the silver medal with a miss on the last frontier, but was content with the bronze.
Between the prize-winners of the race and Pavlova were also Italian Dorothea Wierer, who remained the leader of the World Cup distance classification, and German Janina Hettich.
There is it!
Lisa Theresa Hauser wins her first individual World Cup Race in the women's 15km in @biathlonantholz 🙌 # ANT21 🇦🇹
🥇🇦🇹 Lisa Theresa Hauser @OESVbiathlon
🥈🇺🇦 Yuliia Dzhima @OlympicUA
🥉🇫🇷 Anais Chevalier-Bouchet @FedFranceSkihttps: // t .co / bk5aBBso9Qpic.twitter.com / m8K3fjDQov
- IBU World Cup (@IBU_WC) January 21, 2021