Biathlon World Cup
Unexpected debut: Grotian appears on a very big stage
Surprisingly celebrates her World Cup debut in Nove Mesto: Selina Grotian. photo
© Hendrik Schmidt/dpa
Selina Grotian is happy to have been nominated for the Biathlon World Championships. Now it is even being used.
Like Laura Dahlmeier eleven years ago, young biathlon hopeful Selina Grotian is surprisingly celebrating her World Cup debut in Nove Mesto. The nomination alone without fulfilling the World Cup standard was a big surprise for the 19-year-old.
“I don’t expect to play, I just want to see what it’s like at the World Cup and take everything with me and gain experience,” Grotian said shortly before the World Championships Czech Republic said in an interview with the German Press Agency.
Praise from Bitterling
But now the five-time junior world champion, who is considered the greatest talent since Magdalena Neuner and Laura Dahlmeier, is competing in the individual (5.10 p.m./ARD and Eurosport) over 15 kilometers, with Franziska Preuß, Vanessa Voigt and Janina Hettich-Walz also running. “Selina trained very well. She is very stable, very lively and was also really good at the shooting range,” said sports director Felix Bitterling.
Grotian was involved in the World Cup from the start this season. After mixed performances with places between 21 and 77, she dropped out of the A team before the home races in Ruhpolding and ran again in the second-class IBU Cup before returning to the elite league at the World Cup dress rehearsal in Antholz.
Relaxed and without pressure
She didn’t like the demotion at all, but in retrospect it had something positive. “I was looking forward to the challenge of being able to work my way up again. It took me a little further,” said Grotian, who won the overall ranking in the IBU Cup last year.
She always goes into the races relaxed and without pressure and can cope well with setbacks. “It’s my way of letting everything come to me. If things don’t go well, I put it aside relatively quickly and move forward. Because I think to myself, there are much worse things in life that can happen,” said the ski hunter from SC Mittenwald, who, like Neuner and Dahlmeier, is looked after by home trainer Bernhard Kröll.
Perhaps Dahlmeier’s story is a good omen. Without a World Cup appearance, the then 19-year-old traveled to Nove Mesto in 2013 as a World Cup reservist. Surprisingly, the later two-time Olympic champion and seven-time world champion was nominated for the relay and brought the team from eighth place to the top as the only flawless German shooter – even if in the end fifth place was not enough for a medal.