Young German biathletes fly from victory to victory at the World Championships

What a golden offspring! The biathlon talents of the German Ski Association came up trumps in the pursuit races on the final day of the Youth and Junior World Championships.

Selina Grotian and Julia Tannheimer – two names that all biathlon fans should remember. The 18 and 17-year-old talents caused a sensation at the World Championships for the best young athletes. Grotian, who will make her World Cup debut next week, won the junior women’s pursuit on Sunday to celebrate her fourth gold medal.

The performance of Tannheimer, who competes in the juniors and flies home with three gold medals, was similarly successful. Like Grotian, she won the sprint as well as the chase race, as well as gold in the relay. “I never thought I could win twice, it’s so exciting”said Tannheimer, who ran a lonely race over 7.5 kilometers despite three shooting errors.

Kink takes silver and five medals in total

Julia Kink crowned the strong German performance with silver (+ 1:43.7 minutes/5 penalties) and euphorically celebrated her fifth medal overall: “It’s so crazy. I would have been proud of a medal, but now I have five!” The race started badly with three shooting errors, after that “I tried to pull myself together and start over. It worked”said Kink.

Grotian on the way to the top of the world

For Selina Grotian, too, the Junior World Championships were pure pleasure. The 18-year-old from Garmisch-Partenkirchen won four world titles – and in an impressively confident manner. After her sprint victory on Saturday, the German celebrated a start-finish victory on Sunday.

After ten kilometers she was unbeatable in 30:00.3 minutes (4 penalties). Second-placed Frenchwoman Jeanne Richard had one less penalty loop, but was 1:13.1 minutes slower than the extremely fast German, who had already become European Champion in the adult pursuit in January.

Grotian, billed as the new Laura Dahlmeier, is making her debut with the best at next week’s World Cup finals in Oslo.

Youth: Engelmann storms to silver

The young German biathletes were not on the gold track at the Junior World Championships, but they also travel home with many medals. Albert Engelmann still managed to bring home a silver medal in the pursuit on Sunday.

After his fifth place in the sprint, the 18-year-old from WSV Clausthal-Zellerfeld made it onto the podium. With a great mileage and a total of three penalties, he finished 19.3 seconds behind World Champion Sivert Gerhardsen from Norway.

Erik Hafenmair (6./+ 1:51.2 minutes/5 mistakes), Elias Seidl (7./+2:03.4 minutes/3) and Tim Nechwatal (8./+2:05.8 minutes/4 ) ensured a brilliant German result with top ten places.

Juniors: Menz just missed the podium

Benjamin Menz, chasing the juniors, stormed from sixth to fourth place and just missed the podium. After the fourth shooting he had hopes of a place on the podium, but on the final loop Menz couldn’t keep up with the fast Norwegians.

Martin Nevland won gold in the triple victory for Team Norge, Einar Hedegart took silver ahead of Trym Gerhardsen.