The organizers of first individual IBU World Cup biathlon race of the season had to reschedule the Individual race for Men from Wednesday to Thursday due to a persistent fog.
Rudno polje woke up in the foggy morning. The scheduled start of Individual Men’s race at 20 km distance was foreseen at 14:15. A few minutes before half past two in the afternoon it became clear that the race would not be possible and the jury was forced to postpone the race. IBU Race Director World Cup, Borut Nunar, explained: “We could not guarantee the same conditions to all the competitors, because of the dense fog that descended over Pokljuka. The athletes and coaches couldn’t do the proper zeroing, because of changing conditions; there is a quite dense fog in the forest as well especially in the part of the fastest downhill, where the visibility is less than 20 m. Not enough quality zeroing and unsafe conditions on the course brought us to a decision that we should not risk a completely unfair competition. It was a tough decision to make but I trust the jury they made a good decision.”
After postponing the Men’s 20K Individual Race to Thursday, chief of Competition, Matej Kordež added: “We have done everything we could. We started with the zeroing when the conditions were relatively solid but not good. Conditions ranged from solid to poor, sometimes they were also impossible. The logical decision of the jury to take was to reschedule the race, especially because of the competition specifics – an individual 20K competition with four shootings and 1 minute penalty time for a missed target.”
Tomorrow’s program will begin at 10:15 with the Men 20 km Individual race and will be followed up by Women 15 km Individual competition at 14:15.
Photos in the gallery by Anže Kacin and Žiga Kalan.
