Saturday saw the return of the women to the Kontiolahti tracks for the 7.5km sprint.
Results
Winning the sprint race was Marketa Davidova! After looking good all week she finally put everything together today shooting clean to take her 4th career victory. It’s the first time she has been back on the top step since 2021 and has strangely paralleled Jacquelin from the men’s race yesterday as it was his 4th win and his first since 2021 too!
Elvira Oberg continued to out ski her own mistakes on the range to take second place. She missed two but finished just 8.8 seconds behind Davidova. She just needs 1 less miss each time and she would be winning everything!
In third place was home heroine Suvi Minkkinen! She shot clean to take her first podium at home in Kontiolahti and it was fantastic to see. She is another that has been performing well and everything went right today. She was great in the Women’s Relay, she was 10th in the Individual and now a well deserved podium in front of her own fans.
It was pretty close in the end though with Franziska Preuss coming in 4th just 0.1 of a second back! Franziska is the perennial bridesmaid – let’s hope that second win is coming soon.
Hits
There were so many good performances today it’s hard to know where to start. There must be something in the Finnish water! Karoline Knotten made a spectacular comeback finishing 5th shooting clean after coming home 53rd in the Individual with 5 misses!
19-year-old Julia Tannheimer was 6th to get her PB and first World Cup flowers with 10 hits. Fellow youngster Sara Andersson took her PB in 7th also with clean shooting.
Gro Randby in just her second individual World Cup start was 16th with 9/10. Maya Cloetens got her PB in 23rd with a single miss. Another Finn Sonja Leinamo moved her PB 20 places forward to 27th with 9/10. Shilo Rousseau in her second start was 70th with just one miss.
Misses
I have to mention the French team under misses as I did it to the Norwegian men. Best of the French today was Oceane Michelon in 10th. Julia Simon seems to be really struggling finishing 47th with 3 misses. I’m not sure if it’s a on-going issue with her leg or not but she is not herself at the moment. Juni Arnekliev is not doing well either. Her form is very up and down. She wasn’t great in the Single Mixed Relay but better in the Women’s Relay and Individual but today she was 75th with 7/10.
Extra bullets
The Top 10 in the Sprint came from 8 different nations which is so exciting to see. Sweden were the only team to have two in the Top 10 and it’s great to see so many nations doing well.
Poor Ingrid Tandrevold is having a tough time at the moment. Her shooting is good but she keeps suffering from tachycardia (an abnormally fast heartbeat) in the races and either has to slow down or stop until it resolves. This must be very worrying for her having had heart issues in the past. It explains why she has been finishing lower down the order than you might expect with so few misses.
Today’s results mean the Elvira Oberg will wear the yellow bib tomorrow as new World Cup leader. Oceane Michelon keeps the blue bib as best Under23 and Marketa Davidova will wear red in the next Sprint as leader of those standings.
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