20/20 wins junior individual gold for Khaliullina and Barchewitz

Max Barchewitz of Germany and Anastasiia Khaliullina of Russia both closed all 20 targets in today’s individual competitions to win gold medals at the IBU Youth/Junior World Championships in Lenzerheide.

Max Barchewitz of Germany was the only junior men out of 105 in the competition who closed all 20 targets at the junior men's 15 km individual winning his first-ever gold at the IBU Y/J World Championships. Vebjoern Soerum of Norway, with two penalties finished 18.7 seconds back for the silver medal while Sebastian Stalder of Switzerland missed in the last standing stage, finishing 46.7 seconds back than the German for the bronze medal.

An idyllic sunny day greeted the junior men at the start of the competition where the Swiss had high expectations for the world’s leading junior and youth world champion in the individual Niklas Hartweg. While Hartweg missed in the first prone and the last standing stages and finished 15h his compatriot Stadler led the competition until the very last standing stage where one penalty proved too much for the sharp-shooting Barchewitz who shot 20/20 compensating perfectly for his 36th fastest ski time. Soerum, two-time gold medalist at last year’s IBU Y/J World Championships in Osrblie, Slovakia who spent the first two months of the 2019/2020 season competing in the Norwegian Cup, was fourth fastest on skis but two minutes of penalty time proved costly at the end.

Khalilullina also shoots 20/20 for gold

Anastasiia Khaliullina of Russia, competing in her last junior year at the IBU Y/J World Championships shot 20/20 in unusually warm afternoon conditions in Lenzerheide and won gold medal in junior women 12.5 km individual. Silver medal went to the BMW IBU World Cup athlete Milena Todorova of Bulgaria who was 1:07.9 behind Khaliullina. Home favourite and world’s best women junior Amy Baserga won the bronze, 1:16.0 behind the winner.

Just like Barchewitz in the men's competition, Khaliullina built her win with great focus on the shooting range (19th fastest), closing all 20 targets, one of only three athletes to do so today and skiing fast enough (17th fastest time) to withstand the powerful Bulgarian Todorova who has 21 BMW IBU World Cup appearances to her name but had three penalties while fastest on the skis. Baserga (ninth fastest ski time; fourth fastest in the shooting range) was sick over the Christmas holidays; still fought hard but one penalty in the second prone and one in the second standing proved too costly today.

You can watch live stream from Lenzerheide at: biathlon.fans every day.

Photos: Evgeny Thumashov