Suvi Minkkinen and Tero Seppälä became the first Finns to win the biathlon mixed relay at the World Cup.
16:56•Updated 17:08
Tero Seppälä and Suvi Minkkinen are celebrating a historic victory in the mixed doubles relay of the Biathlon World Cup in Oberhof, Germany on Sunday.
Anchored by Minkkinen, the first place is Finland’s first in the mixed doubles relay and overall the first in the World Cup since Kaisa Mäkäräinen the number one position it grabbed five years ago.
The win is the first World Cup win for both Finns.
– Pretty incredible feeling. It’s cool to win with a teammate. The race started really well and it was already starting to get a little tense when Tero sent from such a good position to the last leg, Minkkinen was in the mood.
Tero Seppälä reached the top three in the World Cup for the first time after more than 200 competitions. He said that he believed in Finland’s possibilities and also praised the performance of the skis.
– A really great feeling. In shooting, there were correct moves and good hits. I trusted this teammate of mine, that if he could only bring in a good place, then Suvi is in such good shape and it was successful, Seppälä said.
Seppälä was so excited about the win that he sometimes started answering in English instead of Finnish in an interview conducted by the Swedish public broadcasting company SVT.
The Finnish duo received a total prize money of 13,000 euros for their win.
Accurate shooting
Finland was efficient on the shooting bench and used only five spare rounds in the entire competition.
Finland was at the top of the competition from the beginning. Tero Seppälä sent Minkkinen to the anchor section in third place. Seppälä didn’t get nervous about a few missed shots, but calmly did his own work.
– However, I have been able to shoot from first place a few times, and now was also the time to succeed in that. I didn’t try to shoot at a terribly fast pace, I’m satisfied with how I managed to shoot.
Suvi Minkkinen arrived at the last shooting location together with France by Paula Botet and Germany Selina Grotianin with.
The Finn calmly and quickly shot the zeros and raced to the last ski section a few seconds ahead of the French. Grotian was left adjusting with spare cartridges and dropped out of the gold fight.
Minkkinen was able to keep the Frenchman behind him and was able to win a historic victory by 5.8 seconds.
Minkkinen said that he drew strength from the winner of yesterday’s pursuit, France Lou Jeanmonnot’s from working on the shooting range.
The Finn watched the pursuit race in the evening as a replay and was impressed by the Frenchman’s calm last shooting.
– I tried to gather the strength to dig out that inner Jeanmonnot and shoot like him. At least based on the result, I was able to implement it, Minkkinen said.
– When you watch tougher athletes, you also get the feeling that you don’t have to rush or do anything amazing. Such calm, good shooting is enough.
WC seams?
The pair relay will be contested next time at the World Championships. At that time, the anchor part is for men.
– It doesn’t matter, Tero would have done just as well today in the last lap, expert Ville Kotikumpu emphasized.
Finland’s opponents were also top class today, even if the opposition gets tougher in the World Cup.
– For example, France had their number one team, at least based on this week, Kotikumpu reminded.
1. Finland (Tero Seppälä, Suvi Minkkinen) 39.17.1 (0+5)
2. France +5.8 (0+8)
3. Germany +24.9 (0+11)
4. Switzerland +46.4 (1+8)
5. Austria +52.1 (0+8)
6. Slovenia +55.3 (0+9)
7. Estonia +1.16,5 (0+10)
8. Norway +1.16.6 (4+13)
9. Czech Republic +1.40,0 (0+11)
10. Latvia +1.57,9 (1+10)
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12. Sweden +2,21,6 (2+13)