Grand-Bornand Pursuit: 8 Biathletes in 14 Seconds!

Two kings races for the price of one, what do you think? The Gentlemen of Grand-Bornand pursuit will have the air of a mass start, on the eve of the real “mass”, this Saturday. For only eight biathletes, certainly. Whose departures will be slightly staggered, of course. But admit that such slight gaps at the end of a sprint constitute an intriguing rarity.

Eric Perrot (9/10 shooting) took eighth place on Friday, conceding only 13″9 to the winner Vetle Christiansen (10/10), rounded up to 14 for the next race. Between them, Johannes Dale (+4″), Emilien Jacquelin (+5″), Johan-Olav Botn (+6″), Sivert Bakken (+9″), Sebastian Samuelsson (+9″) and Martin Ponsiluoma (+12″) will have to tighten.

Instead, judge how much more open the “Top 8” is usually, with the waiting time for the eighth competitor to start during the last ten men’s pursuits on the main circuit.

“This is not equivalent to a mass start, because the one behind has a little effort to make, so it’s always a matter of course. (for the one in front), but it looks a lot like it“, tempers then admits Loïs Habert, ex-biathlete present at Grand-Bornand for Eurosport. Small groups separated by two or three seconds can quickly form a big one: “Three seconds in a first lap is almost nothing, you just need to go for a bit in sprint mode and press hard on the entry into the bumps and you’ll get on the skis.”.

“On the other hand, three seconds in a last lap, at the breaker from start to finish, is a lot“, specifies our consultant, for whom the fear of a final decisive loop should favor this scenario. “A priori, we will find the same snow conditions as Friday, which we did not have on Thursday. A little slower snow, which causes the wax to wear out and the structures to become clogged over the lapshe explains. At first, the skis work pretty well, but pretty quickly it deteriorates. So the athletes are expecting a very tough finish. And the harder it is, the slower it is, and the more gaps there can be.”

QFM not so far

If the conditions are “extra-lenses” – “and we’re not there yet” –, Habert considers on the contrary that the race could settle early, if a nation has better sliding, or if a biathlete is above the rest in terms of cross-country skiing. The theory of increasing gaps at the end of the race would apply from the first to the last hectometer of a course which has 125, and would reduce the chances of seeing a big leading peloton present itself at the first shot.

See you at 2:45 p.m. for the verdict, with this prosecution which promises, and whose condensed appearance does not stop at the eight protagonists cited. Quentin Fillon Maillet (bib 20) will, for example, only start 52 seconds after Christiansen. Before that, from 12:15 p.m., Lou Jeanmonnot will start chasing Hanna Öberg. Three seconds separate them at the start. That’s almost nothing… in the first round.