Hanna Oeberg won her second gold medal at the Biathlon World Championships in Oberhof after triumphing in the women’s 12.5km mass start. Earlier this week, the Swedish biathlete also won the 15 km individual race.
Sweden came to the second position in the medal standings with 3 gold, 3 silver, and 5 bronze. Norway finished at the top of this ranking with 5 gold, 5 silver, and 3 bronze medals.
Hanna Oeberg didn’t have the best first half of the women’s 12.5km mass start after committing one error in both lay shootings. However, she was perfect from the straight to take the lead at the start of the final 2.5km lap. In them, the Swedish biathlete showed a good enough pace to hold off Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold, who took home the silver.
The Norwegian surprised even herself after knocking down all her targets from the upstand position, having previously committed only one mistake from the laying shooting. In the final, Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold finished 4.8 sec behind Hanna Oeberg, and actually the two gave the same time on the last lap.
The bronze medal went to Julia Simon (France), who was in the lead before the final shootout, in which she made her third mistake of the competition. So she started the last 2.5 kilometers in third place behind Hanna Oeberg and Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold and by the middle of the lap she had overtaken the Norwegian. But then came Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold’s counterattack, which was very fast in the last 800 meters of the race.
At the foot of the medals was the second representative of France, Anais Chevalier-Bouchet, who, like Julia Simon, made a mistake, her only one, in the last shoot and lost a chance to fight for the top positions. The top 5 were completed by the Czech Marketa Davidova, who made a total of three penalty laps today.
Next year, the Biathlon World Championships will be held in Nove Mesto na Morave in the Czech Republic. It is there that the next round of the World Cup season will be held in two weeks, when there will be competitions in the sprint, pursuit and mixed relay disciplines.
