Norwegians dominate the pursuit
Just in time for the start of the men's pursuit, the sun returned to the ARENA am Rennsteig, while the 60 starters gathered at the four start corridors in front of a sold-out arena. Frenchman Quentin Fillon Maillet started on the track with a 15-second lead, ahead of his two teammates Fabien Claude and Emilien Jacquelin. The French trio had a clear goal after the sprint: to defend the podium. Initially, the three were also able to stay in the leading group.
However, after a flawless prone shooting, Fabien Claude showed nerves with four misses in the first standing shooting. Fillon Maillet and Jacquelin did not have the best of luck at the shooting range either. This opened the door for Norway's Sturla Holm Laegreid, who had already finished sixth in the sprint and worked his way forward over the course of the race. He did not relinquish the lead after the third shooting and won with a lead of 5.2 seconds ahead of the two Boe brothers, Tarjei and Johannes Thingnes, who also gave each other nothing on the course. Tarjei Boe put in a strong race with just one miss and made up 15 places.
With an improvement of ten places compared to the sprint, Johannes Thingnes Boe was able to defend the yellow jersey as World Cup leader, while today's winner Laegreid is howevermoving up. ‘Today was Norway day, a wonderful feeling. The day yesterday wasn't so good for my teammates, so it was important to fight back. The crowd is wonderful,” said the victorious Laegreid happily in German.
The DSV team received a clear message from the sports director ahead of the race, which initially seemed to work. Justus Strelow in particular started the race with good prospects. In the end, he only had one miss. However, it was not enough for a top position. ‘I tried to keep up in the first two laps, but from the third lap onwards I had to pay for it. The Birxsteig is simply 30 meters too long for me,’ he said after the race. He eventually finished in 17th place, directly behind Philipp Nawrath, who came in 16th. The other placings of the German biathletes: Danilo Riethmüller (25th place, 4 misses), Johannes Kühn (29th place, 3 misses) and Simon Kaiser (44th place, 7 misses) and Philipp Horn (45th place, 6 misses).