Christl Lechner from Ruhpolding is the neighbor of the biathlete Philipp Nawrath. In general, Christl Lechner is closely linked to the sport of biathlon; she organizes mascot dancers who performed at the award ceremony for the World Cup relay races on Thursday evening. So Christl Lechner knows everything, but she doesn’t know everything either. When the winner Tarjei Bö announced on the podium on Thursday that Philipp Nawrath “now has a Norwegian girlfriend”, even Christl Lechner looked surprised out of her ski suit. And squall? He had provided himself with a template for a swipe. He assumes that Nawrath has good reasons to start for Norway next season. Maybe that wasn’t meant entirely seriously before Bö shouted into the Ruhpolding night: “You’ll never catch up with us Norwegians.” That, in turn, sounded alarmingly serious.
Norwegian festivals are already looming again at the German home World Cup in Ruhpolding. This is due on the one hand to the hard-drinking and well-dressed Scandinavian guests, but above all to Norway’s ski hunters. The half-time results in Upper Bavaria speak for the Norwegian team, especially among the men and after Friday also from the women’s perspective. In the relay, even without dominator Johannes Thingnes Bö, they achieved a clear victory on Thursday ahead of the German team and Italy. On Friday, the victory went to Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold; France only won the women’s relay at the start, ahead of Sweden and Germany.
Sporting history from a German perspective was shaped by an athlete named Julia Tannheimer in Ruhpolding. Julia who? Well, on Friday afternoon an 18-year-old woman from Ulm actually made her World Cup debut, who had recently competed in the lower-class IBU Cup and had recommended herself for the league of industry leaders. In Ruhpolding she was given the chance in the 7.5 kilometer sprint and, thanks to two error-free shooting sessions and a solid running performance, she immediately made it into the top 15 (which, according to the criteria of the German Ski Association, corresponds to half the standard for the World Championships in Nove Mesto). Janina Hettich-Walz crossed the finish line in sixth place as the best German. Franziska Preuß was literally on the verge of breaking Norwegian dominance.
A “tightrope walk that you take the audience positively with you, or you put yourself under pressure”
Preuss was in the lead after the prone stage and went into the decisive standing stage with the opportunity to win this race. It would have been the first biathlon victory for a German woman since Denise Herrmann-Wick’s World Cup sprint success almost a year ago. And so it happened that the fans of this sport got up in the stadium. They had already celebrated Preuß’s goals three times, and she still had to hit two targets. But then Preuss missed, first once, then again. Too much risk? “Maybe I let myself be tempted a little bit,” explained Preuss after the race. The spectators in Ruhpolding are louder and closer to the athletes than anywhere else. It’s a “tightrope walk: you take the audience positively with you, or you put yourself under pressure.”
Julia Tannheimer soon let us know how much the audience can actually influence the race with their noise, speaking into the TV microphone after its premiere on ZDF. “I’m more excited before the interview than I was before the race,” she said with a smile on her face that suggested that the scenery in the IBU Cup might be less spectacular. “That was really great, especially the fans,” said Tannheimer. “I ran way too fast because I was so cheered on.” It all seemed to be inspiring for her. “It really pushed me that the fans were always cheering.”
Tannheimer, Preuß, Hettich-Walz and the other biathletes will go to the pursuit final on Sunday (12.30 p.m.). Nawrath and his teammates will be in action on Saturday (2:30 p.m.) and Sunday (2:45 p.m.), and Nawrath’s neighbor Christl Lechner may also be there again.