It has been a fantastic week of weather for the races in Ruhpolding culminating in another beautiful day with sun and hardly any wind. The races matched the conditions with two exciting Mass Starts that both went down to a final showdown on the last shooting! Oh and a couple of firsts!
Results
Tommaso Giacomel was the winner of the men’s race with the perfect 20/20! It has been a tough season so far for the young Italian but as I noted in the relay he hit 10/10 and so probably came into this race with increased confidence. He showed that confidence in the final shoot going head to head with Johannes Boe and coming out on top to claim his first ever World Cup victory.
Johannes, in what we now know was his final race in Ruhpolding, missed twice but it was the crucial miss on the final shoot that cost him the win. It also cost him second place as teammate Sturla Laegreid coming from behind hit all of his final five to pass Boe.
Boe finished third in the end 11 second behind the winner and 5 behind Sturla.
Elvira Oberg was triumphant in the women’s race. In a three way shootout she was the one who held her nerve and shot clean on the final standing to take her 10th career win, just one behind her sister, with 20/20.
Her opponents Dorothea Wierer and Lou Jeanmonnot both blinked and missed 1 and 2 targets respectively. That left the door open for Jeanne Richard to move into second place after a perfect 20 on the range. She was joined by Wierer from the penalty loop and looming ominously from behind was Franziska Preuss.
The World Cup leader has missed earlier in her second prone but hit all the other targets to come flying back. She passed both Wierer and Richard on the final lap to secure second place.
Richard managed to hang on for third and her first World Cup podium. It was redemption for the young Frenchwoman after narrowly missing the podium twice in Annecy. Wierer finished in 4th her best result in a while.
Hits
Vetle Christiansen was the only other man to shoot 20/20 today but he only finished 16th. Last season with that shooting he would have been challenging for the podium.
Maya Cloetens had another impressive race for Belgium in 13th just one off her PB.
Misses
Danilo Riethmueller did not have a good race. Wearing the red bib as Mass Start standings leader he could only finish 28th with 5 misses.
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Julia Simon both continue with their struggles with JBB in 29th with 8 misses and Simon in 26th with 7. Possibly they did too much in the relay yesterday to bring France to the podium but both their seasons have been very inconsistent.
Extra bullets
There was a crash on the finish line in the men’s race with Tarjei Boe colliding with Eric Perrot when the were both going full speed for 12th place. They landed in a heap but luckily both were uninjured and the photo finish couldn’t separate them so they finished joint 12th!
All these results mean that Franziska Preuss leads the Mass Start standings by 1 point from Elvira and Sturla Laegreid takes the red bib for the men.
In the Overall JT Boe’s lead has shrunk to 38 points ahead of Sturla. Preuss is now 142 points ahead of Jeanmonnot. Richard retakes the blue bib from Oceane Michelon and Campbell Wright retains his despite not racing today due to illness.
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