The third start at the Biathlon World Championship in Pokljuka again did not bring positive emotions to the Russian fans.

In the women's sprint, none of the Russians managed not only to win medals, but also to show a result that could give hope for Sunday's pursuit.

It was more difficult for the coaches of the Russian national team to choose the squad for the women's sprint than for the men's one.

Only four athletes could be put up - the personal quota of the current champion was owned by the Norwegian Marthe Olsbu-Roiseland.

As a result, the team included Evgenia Pavlova, Svetlana Mironova, Ulyana Kaisheva and Irina Kazakevich.

The first three athletes have long earned the right to start at the World Championships, and the choice in favor of the 23-year-old native of Berdsk was a little surprised.

In January, Kazakevich's best result was 37th place in the Oberhof pursuit, she stopped getting into both the mass start and the relay.

But the coaches decided that Tatyana Akimova and Larisa Kuklina, whose recent results were much better, should prepare for the individual race.

The vacated place had to be given to Kazakevich.

The weather in Pokljuka during the women's sprint was different from the day before.

The snow stopped and the sky cleared, but the wind blew with renewed vigor.

By its nature, the race began to resemble an individual one - it turned out to be extremely difficult to avoid misses, and accurate shooting could easily open the way to the podium.

The favorites of the competition preferred to start as early as possible, without waiting for the wind to turn into a real blizzard.

The reference point after lying down was the German Denise Herrman, who managed to close all the targets.

At first, her intermediate time could not be surpassed by either the World Cup leader Olsbu-Roiseland, nor her compatriot Tiril Eckhoff, who won the last three sprints.

Only the Frenchwoman Anais Chevalier-Boucher managed to bypass the fast German.

On the second shooting, Herrmann, as expected, made one mistake, but Olsbu-Roiseland did not take advantage of this.

She had a hitch when shooting, costing her two accurate hits.

Eckhoff, who started at number 18, hit all the targets.

Before her, no one had done this yet, and the athlete, who at the beginning of the season did not score cup points in some races, became the main contender for gold.

For Russian biathletes, the race did not work out right away.

Pavlova started the first shooting well, but delayed the last shot and misfired.

Mironova, who worked purely on a bench in the mixed relay, again earned two penalties.

Both athletes could not rehabilitate on the rack - Pavlova again missed, and Mironova completely closed only one target.

An unpleasant prospect loomed before them even without a pursuit race.

Meanwhile, no one really claimed the first place for Eckhoff - really few people could repeat her clean shooting.

Of those who did achieve this, the best move was shown by the Belarusian Anna Sola.

After standing, she could even get around the Norwegian by 0.4 seconds.

True, on the last loop, the 24-year-old athlete ran out of strength, and she missed not only Eckhoff, but also Chevalier-Boucher, who made one mistake.

But the representative of Belarus did not fall below the third place.

Gradually, there were fewer and fewer athletes in the race who were able to join the fight for medals, and the prize-winning three from Eckhoff, Chevalier-Boucher and Sola became final.

At the end of the race, two more Russian biathletes went to the distance.

Kaisheva, who delighted with clean shooting in the relay, this time started and ended the lying down with misses.

On the second shooting range, she closed all the targets, but it did not help to avoid a two-minute gap from Eckhoff and a bleak 36th place.

Kazakevich started the race much more promising - thanks to clean shooting, she even ended up in the top ten after lying down.

It seemed that it would work perfectly in the stance, but the last bullet missed the target.

Kazakevich dropped to 11th place, and eventually finished 19th and became the best in her national team.

In the pursuit, she will try to win back one minute and 20 seconds to Eckhoff.

Pavlova shared 51st place, and Mironova really did not qualify for the pursuit, becoming only 64th.