by The winner of the sprint, Dzinara Alimbekava, produced another impressive performance, hitting all the targets but was still unable to defend her lead as she was pushed into second place by Marte Olsbu Roeiseland.
Olsbu Roeiseland started in fourth place and even as she missed a target in the first prone shooting and again in the final standing, she was close to the lead the entire race. The sixth fastest shooting time of the day together with the third fastest skiing time and hitting 18 of 20 proved enough for her to win the race.
Entering the fourth and final shooting she was some 17 seconds ahead of Alimbekava and about 40 seconds ahead of the leader of the IBU overall world cup coming in to this race, Hanna Oeberg, and last year’s winner Dorothea Wierer. Olsbu Roeiseland shot faster than Alimbekava and even if she had to go round the penalty loop one time, she still left the range a couple of seconds ahead of Alimbekava who shot clean.
As usual the Norwegian was very strong on the last lap and it became clear right away that the Belarussian would be unable to catch her. Even so, Alimbekava finished in second place and was selected as the IBU’s athlete of the week.
Our model’s favourite to win the race was Franziska Preuss, who finished in eight, but Olsbu Roeiseland was the model’s second favourite with a 16 percent chance of winning. Alimbekava was given a 30 percent chance of a podium result.
Even if Alimbekava performed really well, her race was not perfect as she fell early on the second lap.
Julia Simon started in sixth, missed three targets, but produced the second fastest skiing time and third fastest shooting time. She left the shooting range in fourth place after the final shooting, some five seconds behind Hanna Oeberg. On the last lap Simon proved stronger than the Swede and grabbed the last spot on the podium. According to our model Julia Simon had about a 27 percent chance to finish among the top three.
Hanna Oeberg started the race in the yellow jersey, however she was all the way down in 29th place after a disappointing sprint. She used this pursuit to hit back hitting 20 of 20 and moving all the way up to fourth place, even so she was relegated to third in the overall world cup, behind twelve points behind Olsbu Roeiseland and six points behind Alimbekava.
Karoline Knotten hit all her targets and moved from 16th to fifth. She has clearly made great progress from last season.
Dorothea Wierer has had a disappointing start to her season, but is moving in the right direction. She was eighth in the sprint and moved up to places to finish sixth.
Elvira Oeberg was with the leaders when entering the range for the first standing shooting. However as she missed three targets and she left the range all the way down in 14th. She hit all at the last standing and finished the race in seventh.
Franziska Preuss underperformed the expectations of our model, but she still did an okay race claiming eighth place after missing three targets.
Marketa Davidova led the race coming in to the range for the second shooting, but she dropped down the field a bit to finish ninth after missing one target during each of the last three shooting sessions.
Lisa Theresa Hauser made sure that the home fans had something the cheer for as you squeezed into the top ten, narrowly relegating Switzerland’s Lena Haecki to eleventh.
Justine Braisaz moved up from 43rd to 16th even as she missed three targets. She had the fastest skiing time of the day.
Highlights from the race courtesy of the IBU are available below.
