Pleasure and torment are sisters, and torment always comes first in biathlon. On Saturday afternoon, the mixed discipline showed its nasty face, as ski hunter Janina Hettich-Walz saw it. While her colleague was struggling with three reloading cartridges at the shooting range in the relay race, Hettich-Walz explained with an equally torturous look how little pleasure she was feeling at the moment. “For me it was a combination of everything,” said starting runner Hettich-Walz. “There were places where it was sulky. I really struggled with my skis and then I didn’t have the best day,” explained the 27-year-old.
The German women’s biathlon relay team was in ninth place at this point, and things weren’t looking good at all. But in the end the desire was back. From a German perspective, the World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, are still without gold, but the fact that the quartet Hettich-Walz, Selina Grotian, Vanessa Voigt and Sophia Schneider were able to win the bronze medal on Saturday was perhaps the greatest possible success of the day.
It started with the worst possible news: Franziska Preuß, the best German athlete so far this season, who was scheduled to finish last, canceled her start a few hours before the start of the race because of a sore throat. So it happened that Sophia Schneider stepped in for her as the last runner. The 26-year-old had to spontaneously take on the most important role in the formation of a biathlon team, the finish runner – in football you would say: center forward.
“On the last lap it was like a movie,” says Schneider
Schneider had had a solid season up to this point, and even a good one this season. But recently she was anything but convincing at the shooting range. And so, in the final phase of this relay race, a turning point happened that very few people had predicted. Selina Grotian had fought her way forward and passed over Vanessa Voigt in third place, but Voigt lost a lot of time on the cross-country ski trail and handed over to Schneider in fifth place, 51.5 seconds behind. She had to fix it now – and that’s what she did.
Vanessa Voigt (right) switches to final runner Sophia Schneider.
(Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/dpa)
“On the last lap it was like in a movie,” said Schneider on ZDF. And like in a good blockbuster, the competition dramaturgically reached a final climax – at the last shooting. Schneider dueled with Estonian Johanna Talihärm, who arrived at the shooting range a few seconds after her, two women, two rifles. Schneider shot quickly – but not particularly precisely. The woman from Chiemgau missed three targets – and had to sink three reloading cartridges into three 11.5 centimeter narrow black rings to avoid a penalty loop and the loss of the medal. And now, when it was all about sport, Sophia met Schneider. Boom, boom, boom.
“I just don’t have the words for it,” said Voigt: “Hats off to Sophia for putting in the last shot like that. I think we more than deserve it.” Schneider ran to the finish. As predicted by almost all observers, the French women around Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and final runner Julia Simon became world champions, while the Swedes won silver. The DSV athletes used a total of nine spares and were 1:14.2 minutes behind at the finish. After Hettich-Walz’s second place in the individual and Benedikt Doll’s third place in the men’s event – also in the individual – the German Ski Association has won its third medal in the title fights in Nove Mesto.
Once again the German quartet had to struggle with problems on the cross-country ski trail. “It just doesn’t flow,” explained Vanessa Voigt. The anger about the material and the route – when comparing the running times, the German runners were 1:48 minutes behind France – quickly disappeared. At the finish, Schneider was greeted by Voigt, Hettich-Walz and Grotian, who stormed towards her with a black, red and gold flag. “We were always in the middle of things, even though everyone did a good job,” said Grotian: “I didn’t even understand why we weren’t so far ahead. But Sophia simply saved it in the end, kept her nerve and brought the thing home.”
The DSV quartet won silver at the last three World Championships. In 2019, fourth place in Östersund was not enough for the precious metal for the last time. He “died three times and was reborn three times,” said sports director Felix Bitterling: “It was a brutally exciting season. I think the girls implemented exactly what we discussed. This is a medal that is incredibly good.”
And Sophia Schneider? At first everything screamed out, the agony, the adrenaline. “I didn’t find out until half past ten and I was almost on the bus home,” she said. Later, tears rolled down her cheeks; it was pure joy in liquid form.