On Wednesday, the IBU World Championships Biathlon 2021 Pokljuka will start for real. The organisers will award medals in the first of 12 events. At the beginning, the biathletes will compete in the mixed relay. This is one of the youngest biathlon events in which two women and two men compete for each country. Everyone shoots once in the prone position and once in the standing position.
This season, teams had only one event in the mixed relay so far. They competed in Oberhof where the fastest team was Russia with Uliana Kaisheva, Svetlana Mironova, Alexander Loginov and Eduard Latypov. The second place went to the defending champions from Anterselva – Norwegians, but they had only one permanent member. That was Marte Olsbu Røiseland, the first star of the championships 2020 with seven medals, five of them gold. In Italy, Tiril Eckhoff, Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø were also a part of the winning team. This January, Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold, Johannes Dale, and Sturla Holm Lægreid were competing in Germany.
In this year’s only race, French, who will aim high also in Pokljuka, were third (Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, Fabien Claude, Quentin Fillon Maillet). Last year at the World Championships, the Czech team with Eva Kristejn Puskarčíková, Markéta Davidová, Ondřej Moravec, and Michal Krčmář surprised with the third position.
Norwegians who have won the most medals (seven) at the first World Championships in Pokljuka 20 years will surely be among the favourites in all the races. This season, Norwegian athletes have won 11 out of 15 individual races of the World Cup, with the superstar Johannes Thingnes Bø leading ahead of the three teammates in the overall standings. In the women’s competition, Norwegian ladies won little less races, eight, and the leading biathletes in the overall standing are Marte Olsbu Røiseland and Tiril Eckhoff.
Apart from the mentioned teams the favourites are Germany, Sweden, many bets on Austria which has shown incredible form in women’s and also men’s competition just before the IBU World Championships, and the Italians also cannot be overlooked.
The first race of the IBU World Championships biathlon 2021 Pokljuka presented by BMW will start at 3:00 pm. Both women and men in the mixed relay will compete over 7.5 km. The women will be on the anchor leg for the first time in history.