Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, who was rudely left out of the Norwegian biathlon team last week, was in a wild mood in Ruhpolding. Otto Invenius reached his best of the season.
Norwegian biathlon star Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen felt wronged last week when he was dropped from the country’s Oberhof team. The Olympic winner from two years ago did not digest the decision.
He made bitter comments on Wednesday.
– I cannot and do not understand such ignoring. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I couldn’t have done better given the criteria, he thundered VG’s by.
Christiansen’s farm was in Oberhof Johan-Olav Botn. However, Christiansen was involved again this week in the Ruhpolding World Cup.
The “revenge” of the experienced athlete was almost perfect. First, on Thursday, he anchored the Norwegian men to a clear victory.
On Saturday, he won the sprint race by 17 seconds before. Also in Sunday’s pursuit race, Christiansen was close to victory.
In the last vertical position, however, he had a penalty lap and his clear lead evaporated. However, Christiansen fought well in the final stretch and beat the second place in the battle for last years sovereign number one, his countryman Johannes Thingnes Bön.
The Norwegians’ triple victory was paced by the first finisher Johannes Dale-Skjevdal.
The Biathlon World Championships will be held in Nove Mesto at the beginning of February. Urheilu’s biathlon expert Ville Kotikumpu believes that with these displays, Christiansen will not be left out of the World Cup team.
– The coaching can say that Christiansen was given a training break. The question was that we wanted to give others screens for the World Cup. Christiansen will definitely have a place at the World Championships on these screens, Kotikumpu stated during the competition.
Otto Invenius succeeded
23 years old from Finland Otto Invenius ran a great race. The skier who missed only two shots from the four shooting positions was 18th.
This is his best ranking of the season. Invenius has been at best 12th in the World Cup
Invenius’ weekend was very balanced, as he was 21st in yesterday’s sprint race. In Sunday’s race, he was no less than tenth after two shooting positions.
Last week he achieved his best World Cup ranking (24th) of his career Heikki Laitinen was now 38.
– Both had good races. A little was expected from Oto. Laitinen came from the IBU-Cup and gave good World Cup performances.
Kotikumpu calculated that without the missed shots, Invenius would have been in 6th–7th place. He thought before the race that Invenius would shoot two penalties.
– You have to remember that Otto hasn’t made zero all the time. Before the Games, I said that two passing shots would be good. If before the World Cup it is said that there will be zeros, maybe then those zeros will be, Kotikumpu carved with his betting skills.