Biathlon Junior World Championships: sovereign gold for junior relay

The junior women’s relay provided the fifth German gold medal at the youth and junior world championships for biathletes. The DSV women dominated over 4×6 kilometers, especially on the cross-country ski run. The male colleagues had to be content with silver. Not much was missing on world champion Norway.

With Selina Marie Kastl (Neubau), Johanna Puff (Bayrischzell), Marlene Fichtner (Traunstein) and Selina Grotian (Garmisch-Partenkirchen), the German quartet left the competition in Schuchinsk, Kazakhstan, far behind.

16 misses didn’t change that. Despite better shooting performance, neither the second-placed French (15 penalties/+ 52.5 seconds) nor the Norwegians (8/1:14:07.2 minutes), who secured third place, could keep up on the cross-country ski run.

Kastl almost flawless – Grotian takes home gold

“I didn’t think before the race that it would be so clear for us to win because other nations are also very strong”said Grotian after the race.

Starting runner Kastl started furiously with only one ticket in the standing position and took the lead. Puff was the only one from the DSV quartet to go into the penalty loop, briefly lost the lead, but handed it back to Fichtner, who, like last runner Grotian, had everything under control while running. Grotian even used all six spare balls, but still ran the victory home confidently.

Junior quartet clears silver

The male junior relay of the DSV stretched in vain for the gold medal, reaping silver over the 4 x 7.5 kilometers: Franz Schaser, Fabian Kaskel, individual junior world champion Benjamin Menz and Hans Köllner afforded a total of 14 spare rounds. At the finish, they were 8.9 seconds behind world champion Norway. The Italian relay came third (12 shooting errors/+ 1:20:14.2 minutes).

The decision about gold and silver was made at the last shooting: While Köllner tried to keep calm in strong winds and hit all the spares, Norway’s Isak Frey fired a fast series and accepted a penalty loop. On the final lap, he used a climb to drop Köllner. He defended this lead to the finish.