Shooting, but no speed: Russian biathletes finished outside the top 15 in the sprint at the KM stage in Nove Mesto

The second in a row and the ninth stage of the Biathlon World Cup for the season started in Czech Nové Meste.

The first set of awards was played by men in the sprint race.

Russian athletes were left not only without medals, but also did not make it into the top ten, although half of the team was able to perfectly cope with the shooting.

Just a few minutes before the start of the race, a new doping scandal broke out.

Latvian Andrei Rastorguev was suspended for missing three tests within 12 months.

The sanctions against him were so sudden that the organizers did not even have time to remove his name from the list of participants.

Rastorguev was supposed to reach the 29th distance, but, of course, he did not compete.

The first numbers in the start list were given to brothers Tarjei and Johannes Boe, as well as Alexander Loginov and Matvey Eliseev, so that the leaders of the Norwegian and Russian national teams immediately fought among themselves.

However, it was not easy to compete with the Scandinavians at a distance.

Even before the first shooting, Loginov and Eliseev lost to the youngest Be for more than 20 seconds and almost as much to the elder.

Tarjei Boe, who won the previous race in Nove Mesto, was the first of the four to appear at the shooting range and hit all the targets.

Loginov and Eliseev were also accurate and reduced the gap from the Norwegian to 11 and 17 seconds.

And Johannes Boe had a real failure - with the first two shots he earned himself penalty circles.

Although he ran very fast, the extra 300 meters of distance no longer allowed him to hope for victory.

When the athletes who opened the race began to approach the second shooting, the Russians were no longer in the top three after lying down.

Arnd Peiffer, Jacob Fak, Erik Lesser, Emilien Jacquelin and others moved them to eighth and ninth places.

Eliseev and Loginov did everything possible not to go down even lower, and after Tarjey Bo they closed all the targets on the stand.

But both leaders of the Russian team still lacked speed.

After the second shooting, they lost at least 23 seconds to the Norwegian, and Johannes Boe, even before the start of the last lap, began to outrun Loginov.

Peiffer, Fak and Lesser passed the stand with penalties and also began to overtake the Russians.

Jacquelin shot perfectly and for some time remained the main pursuer of Tarjei Bo.

Meanwhile, Sturla Legrade took the lead after lying down.

He came close to Johannes Boe in the overall World Cup and was going to take advantage of the mistakes of his compatriot.

In the second standing, he still missed, but continued to outrun the 12-time world champion.

Given the fact that this season the worst four results are not taken into account when calculating points, Legrade got a real chance to lead the men's rankings, albeit no longer claiming a medal in this sprint.

Instead, Kenten Fillon Maillet became the leader after the second shooting.

At first, the Frenchman was inferior to Tarja Boe, but he worked so quickly on the stand that he was ahead of the Norwegian by as much as 11 seconds.

Meanwhile, the hopes of Russian fans were associated with Eduard Latypov.

He was only two seconds behind the swift Fillon Maillet before the first shooting.

But the Russian could not shoot as great as it was to run.

He not only made one mistake at each turn, but also took a long aim, spending very valuable seconds for Saturday's pursuit.

In net time at a distance, Latypov showed a good 14th result, but in the end he lagged behind Fillon Maillet by more than a minute.

He took 25th place, and Eliseev and Loginov were on the approaches to the top 15.

Other Russians failed to achieve this either.

Evgeny Garanichev closed all the targets, but ran even worse than the team leaders and took 30th place.

Karim Khalili, in complete calm, made two penalties and placed himself in 38th position, just a stone's throw from the end of the points zone.

Kirill Streltsov did not even manage to qualify for the pursuit - two penalties on the stand threw him back to 63rd place.

Fillon Maillet retained the first place and won 11 seconds against Tarjei Boe at the finish.

The bronze was won by the Italian Lucas Hofer, who lost three seconds to the Norwegian.

Legrade showed the fifth time and was four lines ahead of Beo junior.

He is still in the lead in the overall standings of the World Cup, but if we discard the four worst results already now, then an athlete who spends only the second season at the highest level of international biathlon should receive a yellow jersey.