Germans beaten back
Gold is followed by great biathlon frustration
2/11/2022, 1:12 p.m
Still decorated with Olympic gold in the individual, all hope for Denise Herrmann is over with the first shot in the sprint. Her biathlon teammates are no better off. At the end there is the worst Olympic result for German women.
The jubilation about Denise Herrmann’s gold coup was followed by massive frustration about the worst sprint of the German biathletes in Olympic history. Just four days after Herrmann’s individual triumph at the Winter Games in China, the mood has changed completely. Because the 33-year-old unintentionally fired the first shot and missed the target, Herrmann had no chance of a top result early on. Her teammates also experienced a disastrous race, Vanessa Voigt was the best of the quartet with no mistakes as 18th.
“The fun is gone, the looseness is gone, you’re really fed up,” said Franziska Preuss, who was close to tears. “I see no point in continuing.” With three penalties, the Bavarian was 30th, Herrmann had two penalties and was 22nd – these results mean that also in Sunday’s pursuit race (10 a.m. CET in the ntv.de live ticker) there is no longer a realistic chance of medals. Vanessa Hinz (3 mistakes) as 55th had to be happy that she is still in the chase race at all.
“Such kindergarten mistakes shouldn’t happen to an experienced athlete like me. I’m disappointed with my biathlon performance,” Hinz said openly. Four years ago in Pyeongchang she surprisingly finished fifth, while Laura Dahlmeier won the Olympics in South Korea. Now the ski hunters delivered their weakest result over 7.5 kilometers since they were allowed to compete at the 1992 Winter Games. So far, eleventh place for Evi Sachsenbacher-Stehle in Sochi in 2014 was the worst result.
“Definitely your own fault”
And while the Norwegian Marte Olsbu Röiseland won her second gold in Zhangjiakou, the German women not only had problems at the shooting range, but also on the cross-country ski run. Herrmann was 50.5 seconds behind Röiseland in terms of time alone, and her teammates were also behind. While Herrmann suggested it could be down to the wrong choice of skis, Hinz didn’t want to hear about it. “It was definitely my own fault. If a weak runner, which I am right now, makes three mistakes, you have no place up front,” said the three-time relay world champion.
Herrmann, on the other hand, could not explain her drop in performance. “Purely physiologically, it’s not possible to lose that much time,” she said. She found her mistake in the prone position really bitter. “I was a bit tight on the trigger, so the shot came out right away, although I didn’t want to shoot and wasn’t even on the target yet,” said the individual Olympic champion: “So I probably would have hit it better blindly as such.”
In a total of eight Olympic sprints since 1992, there have been seven German medals, with Kati Wilhelm (2002) and Dahlmeier (2018) each winning gold in the shortest race of the women skiers. In China, Sweden’s Elvira Öberg took the silver, 30.9 seconds behind the clean-shooting Roiseland, with Italy’s Dorothea Wierer bronze, 37.2 seconds back. Voigt was 1:31.4 minutes slower than the winner, Herrmann needed 1:45.1 minutes more. “We’re not giving up and will attack and fight back as a team. We know what we’re capable of,” Herrmann said defiantly about the prospects in the pursuit.
“Pretty Frustrated”
Voigt, who is known as a strong shooter, shot clean, but was significantly slower on the track than the fastest. On Monday she was only 1.3 seconds short of a medal. After the sprint, the Thuringian complained about circulatory problems and therefore did not appear for the otherwise obligatory interviews.
Franziska Preuss, who was considered the greatest German hope at the beginning of the season and who had been struggling for weeks with the consequences of falling down the stairs and a corona infection, showed a solid race for a long time at the second start in China before she made two errors in standing shooting. “I’m way too cerebral. It really annoys me because I can’t be the biathlete I am and want to be,” said Bavarian Preuss. The overall World Cup third place from the previous season was “pretty frustrated, I’m not enjoying it at all. Everything is just missing right now,” added the 27-year-old.
The currently depressed mood in the biathlon team could brighten up the men again this Saturday (10:00 a.m.). Former world champions Benedikt Doll, Johannes Kühn, Roman Rees and Philipp Nawrath have their next chance at another German medal in the sprint race.