Neither Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold (27) nor Ida Lien (26) managed to avoid the penalty rounds in the last two stages during the biathletes’ WC relay in Nove Mesto.
As a result, the Norwegian medal hopes ended up in a hugely disappointing tenth place on the results lists in the end. A total of five penalty rounds and 16 extra shots were the result of the shooting. Norway finished 3.42.8 minutes behind the gold winners from France.
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– I do feel that I am driving us a little bit head and ass out of that relay here at our standing shooting. It’s no fun ruining a team. So I’m not very happy, says Ida Lien to TV 2 following the disappointment.
Tandrevold says she gambled on keeping up roughly with Germany with her latest shooting series. It started with five straight misses. She eventually had to go out in three penalty rounds.
– We’ve had a really shitty championship. But we have never received so much love and support from home, which means a lot, says Tandrevold.
France also had to endure several rounds and a long series of extra shots, but still handled the bream well enough to redeem the favorite stamp they had beforehand.
The quartet Lou Jeanmonnot, Sophie Chauveau, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Julia Simon captured the WC gold ahead of Sweden and Germany.
Colossally varied
Varying winds and an unusually high number of barrages characterized several of the stages. Italy, one of four or five teams that were left with a realistic golden chance in advance, was completely out of the race for victory already after two stages.
Even with stars like Dorothea Wierer and Lisa Vittozzi on the team, the reigning champions were never close to a comeback. The Italians finished eleventh, and crossed the finish line almost five minutes behind the winning time.
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Norway’s chances of keeping up in the gold medal match disappeared when Lien was left standing for a long time in an attempt to get the blinkers down on the relay’s sixth shooting. Three misses on the first five shots were followed by two new misses on the extra shots. That meant two penalty rounds and more than a minute and a half up to the top.
– Then there will be two of them. It was painful. Now someone has to take care of Ida Lien afterwards because this was a real blow, stated TV 2 commentator Ole Kristian Stoltenberg.
– It was terribly painful to watch, added colleague Marius Skjelbæk.
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Knotten upturn
Already on the first leg, it was tough at the front for the first two kilometres. France and Sweden got a slot for Norway’s Karoline Knotten (29) and the other nations.
Knotten missed his first shot, but recovered nicely. She lost no more than four seconds to Frenchman Lou Jeanmonnot in said shooting.
The 25-year-old Frenchman continued to impress on the opening stage, maintaining a high speed in the ski track and shooting flawlessly while standing. Sweden and Anna Magnusson, on the other hand, ended up in more trouble with two missed shots.
This opened the way for Knotten to take over second place, although she again had to shoot an extra shot to get down five flashes.
Norway’s representative on the first stage was no worse than that she gained more than ten seconds on Jeanmonnot on the last lap, and was only 16 seconds behind the advance favourite. And that only a few days after she was lying in the hotel room in isolation due to illness.
– It is a magnificent first stage by Karoline Knotten. We had taken this every day of the week, summed up TV 2 commentator Skjelbæk when the 29-year-old sent out birthday boy Juni Arnekleiv (25) on stage two.
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The problems with the cloud series then became far more prominent for the teams in front. France and Sophie Chauveau had to go out in a penalty round, while Arnekleiv had to use two extra shots.
Incredible development
It sent Estonia into a sensational lead after three shots. Tuuli Tomingas kept at it, despite two extra shots on the relay’s fourth shooting. The trouble continued for both Arnekleiv, Chauveau and several others in the standing shooting.
Arnekleiv and Norway used three extra shots and narrowly escaped, while France’s representative failed again and had to go through another penalty round.
– This sport is wonderful. No one could have predicted this, pointed out Ole Kristian Stoltenberg at TV 2 about Estonia’s lead of 19 seconds down to Norway after half-finished competition.
Susan Külm kept the Estonians just ahead of Sweden and Hanna Öberg after the prone shooting on the third stage. Ida Lien used one extra shot and passed 16.5 seconds behind in third place.
After that, the Norwegian problems began in earnest, and the medals were ultimately far out of reach.