“I’m not taking anything at all”
Lesser destroys his Olympic trip
02/15/2022, 4:28 p.m
It’s the last Olympic Games for the German biathlon icon Erik Lesser – and they’re going differently than hoped, namely extremely frustrating. The conclusion of the days in Beijing is correspondingly sobering. He judges differently about his entire Olympic career.
After his last Olympic race, biathlete Erik Lesser found nothing positive to say about his trip to China. “Honestly, I have to say that I won’t take anything with me from the Olympic Games. Neither a medal, nor a good result, and a good time was so limited here,” said the 33-year-old Thuringian after fourth place the German squadron.
“We made the best of it as a team,” said the two-time world champion, who was disappointing 67th in his only individual start in Beijing in the classic over 20 kilometers: “But somehow I envy Arnd Peiffer, who said last season: Bye bye, Beijing I won’t give myself anymore.” Peiffer, Olympic sprint champion in Pyeongchang in 2018, ended his career last winter.
Lesser had already announced that he would no longer start at the Milan/Cortina d’Ampezzo games in four years. He did not qualify for the final mass start on Friday. Lesser had won bronze in the relay in Pyeongchang, and in Sochi in 2014 he won silver in the team and in the individual race. Despite all the disillusionment in China, he looks back “very proud and satisfied with my Olympic career”.
However, Lesser ruled out an immediate end to his career. “It’s still going on for me. Now I want to go home next week, then the full focus is on the next three World Cups,” he said: “I assume that I’ll still be in good shape. That It was usually my strength to keep pushing after the high points.”