Latvia Relay & Norway’s Gold Win – Winter Sports | Sportacentrs.com

Latvia had entered Rihards Lozbers, Aleksandars Patrijukas, Edgars Misi and Renars Birkentals for this relay in the following order. The Latvian team was the first to be removed from the track, which meant the last position. Lozber, Patryuk and Mise made a total of 13 mistakes in the firing lines, reaching three penalty rounds. In addition to Latvia, teams from Slovakia and Bulgaria were overtaken.

The Norwegian team, consisting of Juhannes Dahl-Sevdal, Juhan Ulav Botn, Sturla Holm Lægreid and Vetle Søstad Kristiansen, took the victory. This time the silver went to the French, but the bronze went to the Swedes in the second part of the competition, who were not even in the top ten at the beginning of the first half of the relay. On the other hand, the high eighth place for the Estonian team.

In the first lap, Lozbers chose not to let go of the leading group, reaching the first timing mark in 13th position, but already in the next intermediate stage, the young biathlete ranked fifth. Unfortunately, the pace gained backfired in the first shootout, where Lozber had one penalty lap. Legally, the young athlete returned to the track in the last, 22nd position.

On the floor, Lozber made only one mistake and was able to move up one place. Meanwhile, at the head of the peloton, Estonian René Zahkna left the second firing line in the leading position. True, he passed the baton as the fourth.

Experienced Jakovs Faks skied in the third position in the second stage of prone shooting, however, the Slovenian veteran made five mistakes and went to do two penalty laps. Aleksandrs Patiuks made three mistakes in the second firing line, but avoided the penalty circle.

In standing shooting, even after using three spare cartridges, Patryuk failed to obey two targets, which meant measuring two penalty rounds.

Edgars Mise was still able to shoot lying down in the third stage, but he had not yet managed to fire all the cartridges when the leader Sturla Holm Legreid skied into the firing line, which meant that the relay was over for the Latvian team.

Norway started the last stage in a comfortable leading position – Vetle Shostads Kirstiansen started the distance with a lead of 53 seconds over France, whose last stage was led by Erik Perot. In both shootings, Kristiansen made no mistakes and won the gold medal.

PK stage in Austria, men’s relay

The second stage of the Biathlon World Cup in Hochfilzen