The grapes hang high in biathlon. Yesterday, Lisa Hauser had to experience this painfully in the sprint competition at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. Twice she left the shooting range without any mistakes and was also very energetic on the cross-country ski run. Nevertheless, in the end only the thankless fourth place remained behind the Norwegian Marte Olsbu Röiseland, the Swede Elvira Öberg and the Italian Dorothea Wierer. But sheet metal could still be worth a lot with regard to Sunday (10 a.m. CET).
Then comes the pursuit and there she is in a brilliant starting position. “Woman against woman – that’s good for me personally anyway,” says the Tyrolean. A year ago at the World Championships in Pokljuka, she was an ungrateful fourth in the individual, but then stormed into the historic first World Championship gold for an Austrian woman in the mass start competition. She tackles the 10 kilometers on Sunday 47.3 seconds behind Röiseland, who has now won three medals in Beijing (2x gold, bronze), and is only 16.4 seconds behind Öberg.
The wind was not the big spoilsport yesterday in the race, and the temperatures were also warmer than the days before. But above all, the location of the competition routes at an altitude of 1700 meters once again challenged the athletes to the utmost. “It’s tough at this altitude. I don’t often finish, but today I was two minutes down.” Her teammate Katharina Innerhofer also put in a good performance on the cross-country ski run, but two mistakes in the standing stage meant she couldn’t have placed higher than 21st place (+1:42 min.).
Leitner just missed the target
Austria’s men are in the sprint today (10 a.m.). According to his head coach Ricco Groß, Felix Leitner has so far only “overshot the mark” with his criticism of the ski material. Better to hit the black targets today. Experienced Simon Eder suspects the weak point is somewhere else. “We’re running backwards at the moment.” (free)
Source: Nachrichten
