E.ON IBU World Cup Biathlon

Mass start ended the men’s program in the World Cup Biathlon – 2012. The awards of the penultimate race of the final stage in Khanty-Mansiysk were not passed by the Russians.

Without exaggeration we can say that men’s mass start was one of the most exciting races of the World Cup. Twisted plot throughout the race kept the spectators who almost completely filled the stands of the Winter Sports Center named after A. Filipenko. In addition, local public finally got the real opportunity to cheer for the Russian national team.
At the start the Russian biathletes were fixed at the head of the race. By the first cut-off Anton Shipulin and Andrey Makoveev took place in the top three. But by the shooting line the leadership was won with running by Martin Fourcade and Tarja Bo. The shooting made its adjustments and the French biathlete moved immediately into 12th position, and the Norwegian biathlete managed to keep position among the top ten. Shipulin and Makoveev continued to move along the course in the same order, but this time Andreas Birnbacher interfered among them. Also in the top ten there were Russia’s Evgeny Garanichev and Timofey Lapshin.

Birnbacher, who ran ahead before the second shooting range, could not cope with the shooting and went down to the 15 position. Once again the race was led by Russia’s Anton Shipulin. Andriy Derizemlya and Dmitry Malyshko joined him. By the third shooting range Dmitry managed to bypass the biathlete of Ukraine, but then lost his position on the first prone, missing just four times. Former leader of the race has two misses, which enabled him to cling to the ninth position and continue the fight for medals. The race was headed by Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, Sweden’s Carl-Johan Bergman was 20 seconds behind him, and the next was Martin Fourcade who shot clean. The France’s biathlete rushed to win 30 seconds back, but he missed three times on the last shooting range.

The latest standing got intrigue and hope for all the Russian fans back to the race, because all the eight biathletes coming ahead of Anton Shipulin, had misses, and he was perfect. The Russian biathlete left the stadium after Svendsen, having a handicap of 20 seconds from Arnd Peiffer of Germany. It was impossible to catch up with the Norwegian, but the “silver” could be overcome. But the silver medalist of the World Cup Final in the sprint and pursuit was determined to enlarge his medals collection with another one in the mass start. The closer was the finish, the slower Shipulin was running, and the Germany’s biathlete only accelerated the move. As a result, when Emil Hegle Svendsen was waving the flag of Norway and crossed the finish line, Peiffer got ahead.