The last competition day of the IBU Junior Cup in Pokljuka brought single mixed relay and mixed relay. Russia celebrated a win in morning part of the programme and Italy in the afternoon.
Dionis Roudner and Anastasiia Grishina had a race of their own on Sunday in Pokljuka. The Russian duo was on a secure path to take the win in single mixed relay thanks to superb shooting – they were the only ones with 100 percent score on the shooting range.
At the end, they finished 26.5 seconds ahead of Italians Michele Molinari and Sara Scattolo (1+12), while Germans Florian Martin Arsan and Johanna Puff concluded the race in third place (0+8).
“The weather conditions were really good today, which allowed us to show great shooting,” said Roudner after the competition for the IBU.
Another exciting race followed in the afternoon in the mixed relay. It was a tough fight until the last metre of the race between Italy and Germany but at the end Gaia Brunetto outsprinted Luise Mueller for the Italian win.
“After the final shooting I tried to control the last uphill to keep the German team behind me and to have enough energy for a great finish,” Brunetto revealed her strategy for the triumph.
It took one hour, 26 minutes and 32 seconds for Italians Iacopo Leonesio, Nicolo Betemps, Ilaria Scattolo and Gaia Brunetto to complete the course (0+7), only 0.2 seconds less than Germans Benjamin Menz, Moritz Noack, Hanna-Michele Hermann and Luise Mueller (2+10).
Russians Nikita Blinov, Aleksei Kovalev, Anna Tiniakova and Anastasiia Batmanova were third (0+12), 26 seconds behind Italy.
And Slovenians? Matic Bradeško and Teja Zadravec joined forces in single mixed relay and concluded the race in 13th place (4+18), six minutes and 23 seconds behind the winners from Russia. In mixed relay Slovenia finished seventh. Matic Repnik started really strong and left the first shooting in a leading position, Jaša Zidar took over from Repnik, and Kaja Marič and Kaja Zorč also fought for Slovenia. At the end, they were a little less than three minutes and a half (3+13) behind the Italian team.
There are two rest days in Pokljuka ahead and the competitions resume on Wednesday when the first races of the IBU Junior Open European Championships (IBU JOECH) start.
