E.ON IBU World Cup Biathlon

The Biathlon World Cup Final in Khanty-Mansiysk is completed. The mass start race among the top biathletes ended the competitions.

Today’s women’s mass start could not be an ordinary race, because right today and right here in the Winter Sports Center named after A. Filipenko two of the best biathletes of the world – Magdalena Neuner (Germany) and Helena Ekholm -(Sweden) said goodbye to the professional sports. In addition, each member of today’s race wanted to finish the season on a positive note.

Magdalena Neuner who promised to slam the door started like a real champion. She ran the first loop flawlessly, as if she had no rivals. On the second shooting range she had a 20-second handicap from her nearest rival, and by the third shooting range her lead went up to 37 seconds. Perhaps because of her great desire to win Lena had a wrong shooting. When only one of her five targets got closed, the stadium gasped in disappointment, but every one of her fans continued to believe that Neuner would be able to save the race. But Magdalena crossed any hope of a prize on the last shooting, having missed twice. As a result, despite all efforts, she could finish only sixth.

Sweden’s Helena Ekholm moved from the fifth position to the twenty-sixth after the first shooting .And then she was not able to return to the competition, having missed five times. The famous biathlete finished 15th.

First position in the mass start went to Darya Domracheva of Belarus who promised before to fight to the last in the confrontation with Neuner. {0She missed once on the first shooting range and was rejected by 19 positions, but, being a real fighter, she became 9th by the second shooting. It meant that she could compete for medals. Her 10-for-10 shooting and good skiing on the track allowed her to enter a conditional second place, and when Neuner missed, she decided to withdraw completely all the questions about the winner. But suddenly good luck turned away from Darya for a while and she missed twice on the last shooting and let Torah Berger of Norway go ahead. Domracheva had to win the leading position back, and she did it by the first “forest” cut-off. Berger could not oppose anything, though she tried to exert pressure.

No less intriguing was the fight for third position. Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia put much effort in order to retain the prize, but Kaisa Myakyaraynen ruined her planes. She had no less impressive rise from 27th position. Inch by inch the Finland’s biathlete shortened the gap to the leader and eventually came 32.6 seconds behind Domracheva. She made ​​a titanic spurt near the finish, leaving behind Kuzmina and Marie-Laure Brunet of France.

Russian biathletes finished the mass start race outside the top ten. Anna Bogaliy-Titovets finished 13th, 21th position went to Svetlana Sleptsova, and immediately after that Ekaterina Glazyrina crossed the finish tape.

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