World Cup in Nove Mesto: Too many mistakes: German biathletes again without a chance

In the first race after the surprising resignation of national coach Uros Velepec, the German biathletes were again unable to convince. At the start of the World Cup in the Czech Nove Mesto, Justus Strelow ran in 19th place in the sprint as the best German. After a penalty round, he was 1: 12.2 minutes behind the victorious Emilia Jacquelin from France, who remained flawless. Tommaso Giacomel from Italy was second in front of the Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Bö.

Under the eyes of the new chief coach Tobias Reiter (39), the German starters again made too many shooting errors. Philipp Nawrath shot next to the 23rd. Philipp Horn (25th) missed the goal three times, David Zobel (26th) once as well as Danilo Riethmüller and Johannes Kühn four times. Both did not get the top 40. This means that the men of the German Ski Association do not have a good starting position for the persecution on Saturday.

Starting order changed

Tobias Reiter had only taken over the German men responsible on February 25 after the World Championships in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, after Velepec had unexpectedly resigned. He was most recently responsible for the German men in the second-class IBU Cup. Between 2014 and 2018 he had worked for the women as a discipline coach.

Due to the spring -like temperatures, the jury had changed the starting order, so that the strongest runners, unlike otherwise, did not go backwards, but were placed in the front start groups.