In men’s biathlon, the last competition before the Winter Olympics was the distance with a joint start as part of the seventh stage of the World Cup in the Czech Republic. Renārs Birkentāls experienced his debut in this discipline, who was knocked down by inaccurate shooting, settling for 25th place in the competition of 30 athletes.
The third victory of the season was won by the Frenchman Eric Perot, who finished in 35 minutes and 59.6 seconds, while for the other two laureates, this was the first podium in their careers – the silver went to the American Campbell Wright, who finished nine seconds after Perot, and the Norwegian Sverre Dahlens Aspenes was chasing the bronze, losing 16.2 seconds to the leader at the finish.
The Italian Tommaso Giacomel had a completely unsuccessful race, who closed only 15 out of 20 targets in the firing line, finishing in 11th position, thereby moving ahead of Pero in the World Cup standings.
Birkenthal went on the track with number 22, at the end of the race with six penalty laps, the season leader already lost two minutes and 55 seconds.
Birkenthal’s first shooting
All 30 biathletes completed the first lap at a moderate pace, all skied within 11 seconds of the first shoot, Birkenthal was in 25th position. The closing of the goals did not go as expected, because only three of the five goals were closed, which sent the Latvian to two penalty circles and dropped to 29th place.
Birkenthal’s second shooting
Unfortunately, two mistakes were made in the second firing line as well, which did not improve his position in this competition, being able to overtake only Russian-born Romanian biathlete Dmitri Shamayev, who has one less shooting error.
Birkenthal’s third and fourth shooting
Atypically for himself, Birkentals shot much more successfully in the standing position today than in the prone position, making one mistake in both lines of fire and moving up to 27th place.
Birkenthal finish
In the remaining distance to the finish, our biathlete did not give up and was able to overtake two more competitors on the track, winning 25th place in his mass start debut.
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