Etaking a small lunge across the finish line didn’t help Denise Herrmann-Wick in the end either. With four shooting errors, the biathlon Olympic champion had no chance in the individual race at the home World Championships in Oberhof on Wednesday and was unable to repeat her fairy tale from Beijing. A year after her sensational gold coup at the Winter Games in China, the 34-year-old Saxon only finished 15th. After gold in the sprint and silver in the pursuit, Herrmann-Wick went empty for the first time in an individual race in Thuringia.
“Of course I’m not satisfied, but that doesn’t cloud the whole season so much,” said Herrmann-Wick: “In the individual game you can only make one mistake and then you’re dependent on the others. It was a breeze at the shooting range, you have to be a bit lucky sometimes.” The two double penalties in standing particularly annoyed her: “That hasn’t happened to me for a long time.”
At first she didn’t react to the encouraging chants of the 13,500 fans, but disappeared exhausted into the dressing room. After 15 kilometers she was 3:25.1 minutes behind the winner Hanna Öberg from Sweden (1 penalty). Her compatriot Linn Persson (0) secured silver ahead of Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi (1).
