Biathlon World Cup 2015-2016 (Week 1) - Men's SPRINT race (short highlights)

BMW IBU Biathlon World Cup 2015-2016 (Week 1) - Men's 10km Sprint Race (short highlights) 05.12.2015, Ostersund Fourcade Buries the Field in Wind-blown Sprint Blazing Skis Martin Fourcade of France returned to the top of the podium today by taking the wind-blown men's 10K sprint in 24:02 with two penalties. Fourcade's blazing tour of the 10K course put him 51.6 seconds ahead of Germany's Arnd Peiffer with single penalty. Third place went to Norway's Ole Einar Björndalen, also with two penalties, 55.2 seconds back. Fourth for the second competition in a row was Quentin Fillon Maillet of France, 1:04.2 back with two penalties. Peiffer's teammate Benedikt Doll finished fifth, 1:08.5 back with three penalties while Johannes Thingnes Boe was sixth, 1:10.6 back with two penalties. Today's Story: Wind After a day of snow on Friday, the weather did a quick reverse today as the temperature moved to plus 5 Celsius and the winds died almost completely early in the morning. However as for the 106 men prepared for the start, the wind was building and blowing quite hard from left to right on the shooting range. This wind would become the story of the day. Norwegians and Fourcade Johannes Thingnes Boe started first, promptly picked up a single penalty while taking an early lead. Fourcade matched him but moved to the top of the field with much faster skiing. Not long after, Svendsen cleaned prone, which seemed to set up one of the classic Martin versus Emil duels. However, the Yellow Bib-wearing Björndalen was going to have his say in this struggle today, with a single prone penalty. Wind and Fourcade in Control Now, the wind started to control the competition. Strong gusts added to everyone's woes, especially in standing. Virtually every athlete huddled on points 28-30 seeking shelter, but it was of little use. Fourcade shot fast, taking a penalty, knowing that his blazing skis would negate the 150-meter penalty loop. He left the stadium 44 seconds ahead of Björndalen, who also had a single penalty. Svendsen earlier was one of the biggest victims of the wind. He hit three of the first four targets, then hesitated, and then hesitated again waiting for the wind to die; eventually he missed the final shot and surely his chance to be on the podium. Björndalen's solid shooting again made him the best of the Norwegian men. On this wind-blown afternoon, only a few men crossed the finish line with less than two penalties, one of which was Peiffer. His clean prone shooting put him in the top three; the single standing penalty slowed him a bit, but gave him a good lead over Björndalen and enough time to claim second place. Prone and Ski Speed Martin commented on his big win "My speed is good, I am a bit angry about my mistake in prone; I was too eager to get back on the track. I never thought I could have such a big advantage with two mistakes...I do not think I have ever won with such big gap. I am happy about my shape, my skis and my team who did a great job today. It is always good to start the season with two big ski performances." Lucky Shots Peiffer admitted that luck was on his side on the shooting range. "I had a lot of luck in standing; some of the shots were not so good, but they hit the target...I am surprised for me to be up here, I am not really prepared to be on the podium so early in the season." Björndalen in Yellow Björndalen, remaining in Yellow was satisfied with his day once again. "Biathlon is biathlon; it was a really good race today. It was a lot of stress after the 20K with all of the publicity, but I had no problem with motivation... I was really lucky to hit four; it was a combination of luck and experience." He reemphasized his focus is Oslo. "I am only focused on Oslo, not the Total Score; I have only focused on this once in my career and not this year."