Philipp Lipowitz of Germany, with one miss, took gold in the junior men 15 km individual at the IBU Youth/Junior World Championships in Obertilliach, Austria. Alex Cisar of Slovenia, also with one miss, was 11.0 behind and took a silver medal while Emilien Claude of France missed twice and took bronze, 37.9 behind Lipowitz. Earlier in the day Camille Bened of France shot clean as the only athlete of the day for a gold medal in the junior women 12.5 km individual. Silver medal went to Henrieta Horvatova of Slovakia, with one miss, 1:25.4 back and bronze to Beatrice Trabucchi of Italy, also with one miss, 1:35.3 behind the winner. After two days France is the only country with medals in all competitions.

Lipowitz won the skiing battle with Cisar

Philipp Lipowitz started with two clean shooting stages and was more or less shadowing Slovenian Alex Cisar before missing for the first and only time in the second prone stage. At the end he had 19.9 second faster course time than Cisar who missed the first shot in the last standing and a gold medal with that. Cisar was sixth after the first shooting and stayed second until the very end despite losing ski speed in every lap. Emilien Claude who mad a BMW IBU World Cup debut with 10/10 in first sprint of Oberhof this season, was the fastest on tracks in all laps but fourth, missed once in each standing stages and then fought hard to catch and overtake the Norwegian Mats Oeverby in the third place. Oeverby missed once and was 49.2 seconds behind Lipowitz, fifth place went to Czech Jonas Marecek with one miss, 51.8 behind the winner and sixth Mikulas Karlik with two misses and only 0.2 seconds behind Marecek.

Bened was the only athlete with 20/20

Bened, currently ranked 38th in the IBU Cup Total Score standings, started with the ninth place after first prone shooting and then managed to combine a stable ski speed (among twenty fastest in each loop) with the undistracted focus on the shooting range throughout the finish to win her first ever individual gold medal at the IBU Y/J World Championships. Horvatova, she spent Trimester 1 and Trimester 2 at the BMW IBU World Cup level, started with 5/5 in first prone shooting and19th place, missed once in the first standing shooting and dropped to 21st place but then cleared the remaining 10 targets and moved to eight after the third and to second after the last shoot, a position she kept to the end for a silver medal and second medal for Slovakia in Obertilliach 2021. Trabucchi, she was competing in the IBU Cup this season, had similar race trajectory to Horvatova. She started with 5/5 and 16th place in first prone, missed once in the first standing and dropped to 19th and then elevated her skiing speed while clearing all remaining targets; she moved to 10th after the second prone shooting and then to third after the last shoot, a position she carried over the finish line to finish ahead of Swiss Amy Baserga (two misses; 1:51.0 behind Bened), France’s Paula Botet (one miss; 1:53.2 behind Bened) and Russia’s Anastasia Shevchenko (two misses; 2:03.6 behind Bened).

"Yesterday I had some problems with my riffle and I wasn't too confident before today's competition. Luckily I managed to hit all 20 targets and this win feels unbelievable," said the winner Bened.

Photo: IBU/Bjorn Reichert