25-year old Norwegian outskied everyone to win Sprint at Pokljuka. Antonin Guigonnat of France finished second (+16.1), while Russia’s Alexander Loginov was just a bit slower (+16.4) what was enough for the third place. The other of the two Boe brothers, Tarjei, was fourth, Germany’s Benedikt Doll finished fifth and another Norwegian Sindre Pettersen quite surprisingly ended sixth in his second World Cup appearance.
Yesterday’s winners Martin Fourcade put himself to a huge disadvantage with a prone penalty and a slower than usual pace on the couse. J. T. Boe showed a dominant track performance and got into the lead already after the first shooting stage. He had to take one penalty loop after the standing but still supremely claimed today’s race. Guigonnat and Loginov, both cleaned the shooting and that brought them a place on the podium.
The happy winner explained his tactics after the race: “The main difference from yesterday was that I got to calm down at the shooting and split that from the skiing part. My skiing strategy is to go strong already in the first loop and I plan to continue with that.”
Guigonnat, who claimed his career-best with second place, was obviously very happy as well: “The final result is really great, although I didn’t start the race so well. I tried to match Johannes strategy, but I am not used to do that, so I compensated that a bit at the shooting range.”
Loginov claimed his first podium in the Sprint: “Today I was a bit luckier and dropped all the targets, this is the biggest difference comparing to the previous season and that brought me to the podium today. I am surprised that I lost as much time in the last loop as I did and I’ll have to look into the analysis to find the reason.”
