On Sunday, February 19, the European Junior Biathlon Championship ended on the “Smeceres sila” track in Madona. Birkenthal competed in five disciplines – mixed, sprint, individual, relay and pursuit, in which Renard managed to break into the top ten.
“I consider the result of the championship as satisfactory. The obtained places satisfy me and the team, we did a great job. Small mistakes prevented me from fighting for the podium, but that’s biathlon, and you have to live with it.”
The talented Birkenthal also commented on the unfavorable weather conditions at the European junior biathlon competition.
“You could feel it the most in the sprint discipline, because the warm weather – rain, wet and thawing – interfered. The forecasts shown on the Internet were wrong, therefore the skis were prepared incorrectly, but nothing could be done there, because these are all surrounding factors that cannot be influenced,” revealed the young biathlete.
In mid-December last year, Birkenthal participated in the Junior Cup stages of the International Biathlon Union (IBU), where he demonstrated good skiing speed.
This season, Renar also regularly participates in the IBU Cup stages, and he also gets opportunities to prove himself in the World Cup stages.
“There are strong athletes in the World Cup, there are the fastest and best biathletes in the world. There is no such thing as a bad athlete in this competition. There’s not much to add, it’s top notch. You have to fight for every meter to start as well as possible.”
Birkentāls also points out that he has a person from whom he can be inspired, and that is none other than Latvia’s best biathlete Andrejs Rastorgujevs.
“It’s positive that we have such a strong athlete. Andreja can be seen as an experienced biathlete. Rastorgujevs has made a great contribution to Latvian biathlon, so you can learn from him,” added Birkentāls.
In the interview in “Sports conversations”, Birkentāls also opened up about the beginning of his career, his hobbies and his big dream for the future – the Winter Olympic Games.
The 21-year-old Birkentāls was the closest among the Latvian biathletes to securing the Olympic ticket in the previous season, but did not qualify for the biggest winter sports forum of the quadrennial.
Read and watch this and other interviews with Latvia’s leading athletes in “Sports conversations”.
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