Very exciting relay at Antholz today; lots of interlocking storylines. The wind blew and made shooting difficult in the middle of proceedings, but died down again towards the end. Germany, weirdly, led off (given they had by far their weakest skier opening up); Franzi Hildebrand shot well, but her lack of ski speed showed and she was swamped by faster competitors; Russia tried to put themselves out of it, while Elise Ringen successfully eliminated Norway, it seemed, with a penalty loop at standing 1. Sweden and Poland were the leaders at exchange 1, ahead of a chasing pack including Italy, Czech Republic, France, Ukraine, USA, Canada and others. Germany and Russia were 11th and 12th when Neuner and Sleptsova started, and the duo quickly made light work of the slower skiers in front of them; Neuner dropped Sleptsova, but poor prone shooting in the bad conditions meant that Lena was off to the loop, while shots were being dropped all over the shop elsewhere; Ekholm for Sweden leading Boilley for France away. Again, the good shots were the ones up there; Italy were doing extremely well on home soil. After standing 2, after Boilley needed all of her reloads to go clear, and Nowakowska was off to the loop, even despite two further misses skiers like Vita Semerenko, Sleptsova and Neuner were in contention; they were a minute back, but lots of competitors were between 30 seconds and a minute shy of the Swedes, who were comfortably in the lead thanks to the metronomically accurate Helena Ekholm.
Ekholm handed over to her younger sister Jenny Jonsson with most of that 30 seconds intact, ahead of a competitive gaggle led by, you guessed it, Magdalena Neuner, who skied her way from 10th to 2nd on one lap. She handed over to Miriam Gößner, whose fast pace on the skis only partially offsets her woeful shooting. The diminutive German got on the front and trimmed the chasing pack down; while Bescond, Zaitseva and Valj Semerenko could go with her, the others in the group could not. Also not being able to go with it: Jenny Jonsson, who had lost most of her advantage by the time she got to the range. In her favour? Clean shooting. Bescond, Semerenko and Gößner all required two reloads (shooting at various paces), but unfortunately for Swedish hopes Olga Zaitseva hit all 5 and quickly passed the Swede, as the trails are not Jenny's strong point. She was quickly overhauled by the Russian, and by the end of the lap that chasing pack had hauled her in too. Zaitseva had a disaster at shooting 6, however, and a penalty loop spelt the end of Russia's challenge. Miriam Gößner taking a standing shoot usually has several differing, mostly random, outcomes. And today she added a new one to her repertoire - successfully shooting all 5 targets down, albeit with one reload. She set off in chase of Anaïs Bescond, who shot all 5 down, and the two tagged to Dorin-Habert and Tina Bachmann with 20 seconds over Russia, who were reliant on Olga Vilukhina at the last. Of interest, however, was the clean shooting Belarusian lineup, who had not really drawn much attention, but were just shy of a minute down, and with their trump card - Darya Domracheva - still to play.
Darya ate up the snow as Darya does, but Dorin and Bachmann shooting clear while she had to take a reload from prone hurt her chances. Meanwhile, Sweden were floundering and going backwards, with Jonsson and Högberg on legs 3 and 4 sitting ducks on the skis with the likes of Tora Berger chasing them down from behind. And so to shooting 8, with the race on the line... Dorin shot, Bachman shot. Dorin shot, Bachmann's rifle let her down. The German had to break position twice, adjust various things, change settings, and flustered, shot wide of the mark four times; a penalty loop for the Germans and out of contention they went! Dorin, by contrast, was flawless and reliable as she often is with the rifle, as was Vilukhina, who emerged 21 seconds back. Darya Domracheva was not flawless, but one reload and the on-form Belarusian was 34 seconds down, and all of a sudden they were right in this race; Dorin is not the quickest, Darya on the other hand is. She caught and dropped Vilukhina almost straight away; by the first checkpoint she was just 12 seconds down, and gaining; however Dorin had done a good job of dosing her efforts and had enough in the tank to increase the pace just enough to hold the charging Belarusian off; a grandstand finish for sure. Bachmann, fighting the anger, could only manage 6th, being passed in the loop by Tora Berger and the clean-shooting Olena Pidhrushna.
Massive congratulations to Brunet, Boilley, Bescond & Dorin-Habert; they were the best team on the day. Belarus were solid and kept themselves in contention, but it would have been a victory for one woman's actions.
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