The German team is still waiting for a medal at the Biathlon World Championships. The team is having a hard time and the technical team is struggling with the correct preparation of the cross-country skis. In the sports show discussion, the chief technician explains where the sticking points are. But the material is only one reason for the medal-less performance so far.
It’s almost half time at the Biathlon World Cup. Five of twelve competitions in Nové Město were over. And the Germans are still without a medal. You have to go back a long time to find a similarly unsuccessful German World Cup performance. It has been more than ten years since the Germans last remained without a podium in the first five World Cup races – that was 2013. The World Cup location back then: the Czech Nové Město na Moravě.
So now Nové Město again. And the Germans have long faces again. Johannes Kühn called the previous performance “annoying”. After the persecution, Vanessa Voigt admitted that she had been running “with tears in her eyes” at times. And the currently best German, Franziska Preuß, didn’t know after sixth place in the pursuit “whether I was disappointed or not.”
“If we knew that, we would move on”
The reasons for leaving without a medal so far? The ski technicians were quickly identified and criticized. But if you take a closer look, you will discover a variety of starting points. The skis, the mileage, the shooting
Especially in the men’s sprint on Saturday it was clear that Benedikt Doll, Philipp Nawrath and Co. were running with uncompetitive material. And overall, the team is having an extremely difficult time with the routes in the Czech forests, with the snow, the warm and wet conditions – in short, the skis are being criticized. The technical team is struggling with the correct preparation of the cross-country skis, even though they had even prepared themselves for these world title fights.
More technicians on board than usual
They took nine technicians with them instead of the usual six, as well as their own sanding truck in addition to the wax truck, to find the best setup and the best overall package. But Nové Město and the German skis somehow seem to be a complicated pair. “It’s difficult to explain. You develop the basic setup over many years and it’s based on experience. But in the end the decision only makes up less than one percent. If we knew why preparation is so difficult here, we would be further,” explains chief technician Sebastian Hopf.
Salt to make the snow last
Due to the warm temperatures, the organizer had to salt the route. The salt removes the moisture from the snow. The surface becomes firmer and it takes a few hours until a wet film forms again that binds a lot of water. However, the technicians test well before the competition, so a lot can change. Hopf adds: “It also depends on how many athletes and technicians run over certain sections of the route. There are big differences.”
“The grind on the ski is like the tread of a car tire”
The grinder in the truck resembles a washing machine. The water foams slightly and rotates behind the glass pane, above which the pink grindstone rotates when a ski is pulled over it. The device hums loudly in a low tone. A black rubber tire pushes the ski down, holding it with the grindstone like a sandwich, water drips down into the drum.
The different cuts on the black base of the ski are hardly visible to the naked eye. Christian Beetz holds the ski diagonally upwards, his eye very close to the surface. He turns it back and forth so that the light is refracted: “The different structure is like a car tire. There are ones for wet or dry conditions, cold or warm, fine or coarse. You have to choose the structure that best suits that “Water is absorbed so that the ski can glide ideally and, above all, quickly,” describes grinder Beetz.
New Town and a German Déjà-Vu
Memories of the World Cup last season and also the 2013 World Championships come flooding back. Not just because of the medal tally from the first races. The material problems weren’t quite as serious back then, but there were also difficulties finding the right material at the last World Cup in the middle east of the Czech Republic.
In the individual races of the 2024 World Cup so far, the running deficits were huge. This season they were able to keep up with the leading Norwegians and French at least to some extent. But the moments when three Germans, Roman Rees, Philipp Nawrath and Franziska Preuß, ran into the yellow jersey at the start of the season seem far away.
Chief technician: “Setup has room for improvement”
Very recently and in the Moravian forests around Nové Město, running deficits of well over a minute make it almost impossible to fight for the World Cup medals.
This raises the question of why. There was enough time, other nations have top material under their feet and the German team has a lot of know-how. “Our setup has room for improvement, but we can’t throw everything away now,” admits Hopf. Nevertheless, they do everything: the technicians work for up to twelve hours every day – grinding skis, preparing them, testing them on the track. They cover up to 240 kilometers a day on the trail together. Even after the races, the work for the service staff continues: “We test the skis again and compare them with other nations in order to be able to identify any differences.”
Discussion in the team hotel
On Monday morning there was a big discussion in the team hotel between athletes, coaches and technicians. They now want to stand closer together, this World Cup is still only halfway through and it is now important to pull ourselves together in order to get the most out of it, explained sports director Felix Bitterling after the meeting.
Yes, the skis – but also the shooting
But that is also part of the truth about Germany’s performance so far: The mediocre material is a very important, but only one, aspect of why there is no German flag on the World Cup medal table yet. The DSV athletes also had better placings at the shooting range. In the mixed relay, Franziska Preuß, of all people, had a bad day – the medal slipped away from the Germans after her penalty loop. In the women’s sprint, it was perhaps exactly the one mistake in standing that cost Preuss the medal. And in the men’s pursuit, the four Germans had to go into the penalty loop eleven times in the standing shooting alone.
2013: Medal ban breaks with women’s singles
Incidentally, in 2013, when the World Championships last took place in Nové Město, the German medal ban was broken in the women’s 15-kilometer individual event. Through Andrea Henkel, who had the best material with the eighth-best running time. And she was one of only three athletes to make no mistakes at the shooting range. For this she crowned herself with World Cup silver. On Tuesday (February 13th, 2024, 5:10 p.m. live on the first and in the live ticker) the women’s individual is coming up again: Maybe just the right time for a 180 degree turn so that these biathlon world championships can still be held from a German perspective find a happy ending.