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And the prize goes to number FOUR!
We all have long been looking forward to it, counting months, days, hours and minutes left till the event which is so important for any biathlon fan. And the sprint races flew by so rapidly that its even a bit difficult for me to understand whats happened.
Lets try to put everything into their places. From the very beginning of the race Uschi Disl dominated, although she had the 4th number in the startlist, which is not regarded as a lucky one for any favourite of a race. The first shooting session seemed to have proved this, as Disl made an error and her chance to win immediately reduced to a minimum, while her teammates were following her faultless one after another. Moreover Henkel, Denkinger and Glagow showed a surprisingly high speed rate on the shooting range as well as on the track. They were challenged by Albina Akhatova, who did her best preparing to the season, and is eager to regain her lost high position. She didnt yield to the Germans neither in speed nor in accuracy on the shooting range. After the first group of biathletes passed the second shooting session, Andrea Henkel could boast the best time having quite a gap from Akhatova and Disl.
Show me the person who supposed Disl to win before the start of the race, taking into consideration that the Olympic champion had a long period without any victories!
Still at that time there was the main group of favourits with the trio of the last season best biathletes, I mean, Liv Grete Poiree, Olga Pyleva and Sandrine Bailly. None of them could show satisfactory result despite good skiing, because of bad shooting. As a result the first World cup race became the duel of two biathlon superpowers (my excuses to Norway hosting the event, but their team didnt impress so greatly when compared to those of Germany and Russia). Uschi Disl overcame problems with her rifle and kept fighting for victory although she was 20 seconds behind her rivals and besides they had a significant advantage, following her on the distance and knowing her result. It all makes more surprising the fact that she finally won though only few seconds. And now show me the person who remembered after the finish about the unlucky starting position of the winner! Here we should praise the perfect work done by the great coaches Uve Mssigang and Valeri Palkhovski, who now have 8 of top 10 places occupied by their biathletes. It is them who we are grateful to for the great form of the German and Russian women. The first time the Germans were better. To be continued in Saturday pursuit and the relay.
The Mens sprint started 90 minutes after the womens race. Among the startlist first numbers we can point out Nikolai Krouglov and Ricco Gross, who became the leaders of the race mainly due to perfect shooting. The main favourites started from the middle of the startlist. The first was Raphael Poiree, who shot without errors, but still couldnt improve Krouglovs time. The holder of the World cup has probably not reached his top form yet, or maybe the Russian offered a tempo impossible to compete with. Later we saw that the truth was just in the middle, as only Norwegians Ole Einar Bjoerndalen and Frode Andressen surpassed Krouglovs speed significantly. Andressen remained loyal to his tradition of making 3 errors in a single shooting session and lost any chances to come up to the pedestal.
Bjoerndalen didnt give us a single reason to doubt his preeminence, even when made an error on the standing shooting range. We could see his hunger for great victories. We saw the real Bjoerndalen, capable of regain any time gap on the track. After the second lap he surpassed the nearest pursuer by 13 seconds. The intrigue was kept up to the end in the fight for the second place. Nikolai Krouglov outstripped Raphael Poiree by 3 seconds, but what is 3 seconds for Poiree? But on the final lap Krouglov, the mens number four, not only saved his advantage, but even increased it.
So, both mens and womens sprint races became the triumph for the number four. Oh, no, I didnt confuse anything. We cant but call a victory that done by the young Russian. He managed to outstrip everyone but for Bjoerndalen, but we cant count it. The five times Olympic champion looked as an alien on the Beitostolen track, as a biathlon god, who came from his Olympus to make us happy with his formidable and magnificent performance
Ali, 3.12.2004, translated by Wilhelmina.
