A very exciting Sprint race, full of surprises in the Antholz 2020 Biathlon World Championships; after the collapse of the favorite Johannes Boe, it looked like Quentin Fillon Maillet was ready for his first win in a sprint race, but Russia's Alexander Loginov did an incredible stand shoot and held his own in the last lap, getting the gold medal. Third place for the legend Martin Fourcade, slower than usual with no errors shooting.
Fourth and fifth places went to Norwegian brothers Tarjei and Johannes Thingnes Boe, 22.5 and 23.9 seconds back respectively; Tarjei shot clean while his brother had a single penalty. France added another athlete to the Flower Ceremony when Emilien Jacquelin, with one penalty finished sixth.
Perfect “Suntholz” Day: Top Men Clean Prone
Just another perfect day in “Suntholz” is all that can be said about this Saturday afternoon when Italy’s Lukas Hofer opened the competition wearing bib number 1 in his home stadium. The good weather led to many more clean prone stages than the women had in yesterday’s gusty sprint competition. However, the Italian missed his first prone shot as did number 3 Johannes. Fourcade came to the stadium a few seconds slower than Johannes, but as is his style, shot calmly and clean, leaving less than two seconds back. Dmytro Pidruchnyi matched Fourcade to slip into the second spot after prone. Tarjei set the field on its heels with a strong five shots to jump in front of both his brother and Fourcade. Then Loginov cleaned to move just 1 second behind Fourcade. Number 59 Jacquelin made his bid for a medal by cleaning prone to jump to the front of the whole field.
Loginov Takes Control
Johannes wasted no time in the standing stage, coming in fast, shooting fast and clean. However, Fillon Maillet, who also had a prone penalty, matched the Norwegian with his own shooting class, leaving just .6 seconds faster. Fourcade again shot very carefully, with about 2.5 seconds between shots, closing all five targets for a perfect shooting day, but left 4.9 seconds behind his teammate. Just a couple of minutes later, Tarjei matched his French rival but remained 4 seconds behind Fillon Maillet. Loginov upped the ante with a perfect, fast standing stage to leave with a 7.6 second lead over Fillon Maillet. Jacquelin missed a shot, but left just.3 seconds behind Fourcade.
Gold Medal Push
Fillon Maillet was on fire on the tracks, pulling 7 seconds ahead by 8.5 km, up to 12.3 seconds by 9.6 km stretching it to 17.4 seconds over Johannes. Fourcade closed the gap on Johannes to .6 seconds with 1500 meters to go, while Tarjei faded a bit but was holding second position. The Yellow Bib pushed hard to get 4 seconds ahead of Johannes by the finish, while Tarjei was unable to match either of his French rivals into the finish. However, after finishing in total exhaustion, he was 1.4 seconds ahead of his brother. Loginov continued his Gold medal push still in control at the 8.5 km split. He pushed with a fast tempo into the stadium, crossing the line 6.5 seconds faster than Fillon Maillet for his first IBU World Championship.
