Pokljuka BMW IBU Biathlon World Championship 14.02.2021 men 12.5km Pursuit race preview

Our model simulation for today’s men’s pursuit race of the IBU World Championship 2021 in Pokljuka predicts Johannes Thingnes Boe as the main favourite with 29 percent chance to win even if he starts eleven seconds behind the winner of yesterday’s sprint, Martin Ponsilouma.

Johannes Thingnes Boe is also the favourite to win both the 2020-21 overall biathlon world cup as well as the smaller globe for the pursuit cup in our season simulation.

We expect to see tight competition for the podium today. Apart from the main favourite we can see at least six biathletes with seven to 13 percent chances to win championship’s pursuit gold medal:

Emilien Jacquelin who will start 13 seconds behind the leader has about 13 percent chance for gold and 36 percent for any medal today.

Another Frenchman Quentin Fillon Maillet has a decent chance of eleven percent to win the race and 34 percent for a podium.

Then we have three Norwegian athletes: Sturla Holm Laegreid with ten percent chance to win and 34 percent chance for a medal, Tarjej Boe with similar ten percent chance to win and 31 percent chance to get any medal and Johannes Dale with about seven percent chance to win (25 percent to climb the podium today).

The winner of sprint race on Friday, Martin Ponsiluoma, has seven percent chance to make another gold today and 22 percent to get another medal. Another Swede – Sebastian Samuelsson – will fight for podium as well (his chance for a medal is 17 percent and four percent to win the race).

RBU (Russian) representatives – Eduard Latypov and Alexander Loginov only have three to four percent chances to win medals today.

Austrian Simon Eder will start 56 seconds behind Ponsilouma and his chance to stand on podium is about two percent today.

Italian Lukas Hofer has less than a percent chance to win and about four percent for a podium.

The German team has a combined chance of getting a medal of less than one percent after their poor performance in Friday’s sprint race.

Slovenian Jakov Fak racing on home ground but he almost does not have chances for a medal as he is starting 97 seconds after the leader.

Bib	Gap	Name	Winning chance	Chance for a medal	Projected seconds behind
5	23	BOE Johannes Thingnes	29%	58%	0s
7	26	LAEGREID Sturla Holm	10%	34%	18s
3	13	JACQUELIN Emilien	13%	36%	21s
6	24	FILLON MAILLET Quentin	11%	34%	29s
1	0	PONSILUOMA Martin	7%	22%	31s
4	22	DALE Johannes	7%	25%	33s
9	28	BOE Tarjei	10%	31%	36s
2	11	DESTHIEUX Simon	5%	18%	43s
8	27	SAMUELSSON Sebastian	4%	17%	54s
10	33	LATYPOV Eduard	1%	4%	91s
16	56	EDER Simon	<1%	2%	95s
14	49	GUIGONNAT Antonin	1%	3%	95s
26	75	LOGINOV Alexander	<1%	3%	98s
11	38	KRCMAR Michal	<1%	2%	98s
13	48	HOFER Lukas	1%	4%	103s
23	65	PIDRUCHNYI Dmytro	<1%	2%	117s
19	62	ELISEEV Matvey	<1%	1%	123s
17	58	GOW Christian	<1%	1%	127s
18	60	NELIN Jesper	<1%	1%	128s
15	54	RASTORGUJEVS Andrejs	<1%	1%	131s
36	97	PEIFFER Arnd	<1%	<1%	132s
20	62	PRYMA Artem	<1%	<1%	135s
35	97	FAK Jakov	<1%	<1%	140s
39	104	DOLL Benedikt	<1%	<1%	141s
21	63	BIONAZ Didier	<1%	<1%	162s
32	87	BOCHARNIKOV Sergey	<1%	<1%	165s
33	95	SMOLSKI Anton	<1%	<1%	165s
28	79	SEPPALA Tero	<1%	<1%	169s
27	78	BORMOLINI Thomas	<1%	<1%	171s
12	45	BROWN Jake	<1%	<1%	189s