DPA
Ruhpolding (Germany)
Not even two missed targets stopped Johannes Thingnes Bo from claiming an eighth season victory in the biathlon World Cup as the Norwegian men’s remarkable win streak continued on Wednesday – if the race counts.
Several power outages in Bavaria also affected the Ruhpolding venue and German broadcasters ARD said that the jury would meet on whether the race would count. However, the timing equipment was not affected by the problems as it has batteries as a back-up.
Bö was so fast that he dominated the 20-kilometres race despite having two minutes added to his skiing time for the misses in the shooting range, winning 9.9 seconds ahead of countryman Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen and 29.3 seconds clear of Slovakia’s Jakov Fak.
Christiansen had one missed target and Fak shot clean in the 20km, in which - like in the women’s 15km - athletes don’t ski a penalty lap for each missed target but get a time penalty.
It was a revenge of sorts for the Norwegians because they had failed to make the podium at all in the first 20km race that had opened the season in late November in Finland.
It was their only lapse up to now as they have won all following 10 individual races, plus the two relays contested so far.
Multiple world and Olympic champion Bö has won eight of the 10 races, and placed third in the other two won by Sturla Holm Lägreid and Johannes Dale.
The 10 races have seen three Norwegian podium sweeps and two Norwegians in the top three in the seven others.