Light snow and -2 degrees Celsius greeted the men in Ruhpolding at the start of the Individual. It was a regular Individual today with 20km to ski and 1 minute penalties per miss.
Results
After having a good season so far Vebjoern Soerum made it a great one winning his first ever World Cup race and my did he do it in style. He was perfect on the range with all 20 targets going down and finished 52 seconds ahead of second place. It is an important result as competition is very stiff in the Norwegian team. It also puts him joint second in the Individual standings.
France took second place and this time it was Emilien Claude taking the spot! It is his first podium and career best result on the World Cup. He also hit 20/20 but couldn’t match the skiing of Soerum. He is also in a tough team where 5 of the 6 athletes already have at least one podium finish this season.
Third place went to Andrejs Rastorgujevs. With one miss in his second shoot he needed to ski well to make the podium and he did just that. In fact he was only 4 seconds away from second place. It is just his 4th podium finish in his career and his first in the Individual race.
Hits
Vitezslav Hornig continued his stellar season getting personal best after personal best culminating in 5th place today a leap of 10 spots. He has been skiing really well but it was his shooting that was most impressive today hitting 20/20. Otto Invenius hit 20/20 for the first time in his career to take a new PB of 7th. David Komatz broke into the top 10 for the first time in his career with a PB of 9th and another 20/20.
Two other men hit the perfect 20 today and they were Sebastian Stalder in 23rd and Dmitrii Shamaev in 27th. There was a World Cup debut for Finnish youngster Jimi Klemettinen who was 87th.
Misses
Dmytro Pidruchnyi could not keep his fabulous form from Oberhof finishing 98th with 8 misses. JT was 85th with 5 misses. However he looked very tired and could be suffering from a lingering respiratory illness he picked up over the break. It was the first time he hasn’t scored a point since December 2015 and his worst ever finish on the World Cup.
Extra bullets
JT Boe almost gave up today after his last shoot but a bit of encouragement from friend and rival Emilien Jacquelin convinced him to complete the race.
Sturla Laegreid narrowed the gap on JT Boe in the Overall to 48 points but he could have taken the lead with a first or second place finish but he was 16th.
Endre Stroemsheim was 18th and so keeps the red bib as leader of the Individual standings by 23 points from Soerum and Laegreid.
Follow biathlon23 on Facebook, Instagram and X!
