Julia Kink and Jakub Borgula win Youth Individuals

The second competition day of the Youth Junior World Championships started with the youth women individual, where Julia Kink of Germany won the Gold medal with two penalties in 32:23.8, while the win in the youth men individual went to Jakub Borgula of Slovakia with one miss in 35:29.2.

Second medal for Kink in Shchuchinsk

In the youth women individual, Alessia Laager of Switzerland with only one miss took the Silver, 59.8 back, while Oleksandra Merkushyna of Ukraine took the Bronze with three mistakes, 1:10.2 behind.

Taking the lead after the second shooting with one prone penalty, Kink never gave up her first place until the finish line, despite additional 45 seconds after the last standing. On the final loop, the German gave her all and increased the gap from second place by 30 seconds, taking her second medal in two days.

'It is really unbelievable! It is my first World Champs and it is a really great start. I am really satisfied with everything because normally I am not a good shooter and it was my first time making only two mistakes.”

Laager started her competition with a miss and just 20th place after the first prone. Clean shooting at the next stage brought her back to the top, while the next ten perfect shots put her into the second position after the final standing, which she kept until the finish.

A tight battle for the last medal in the competition was between Merkushyna and Carlotta Gautero of Italy. Both had the same three missed shots and a difference of only 2.5 seconds after the standing. By the final split point, the Italian overtook the Ukrainian, who had an earlier bib number. However, Gautero could not keep the advantage until the finish line. Merkushyna, who gave her all on the final meters, finished by mere .6 seconds ahead of the Italian and took her second Bronze of these Championships.

Fourth Youth medal for Borgula

Behind Borgula, second place and the Silver medal went to Sivert Gerhardsen of Norway with two missed shots, 7.4 back, while Matija Legovic of Croatia won the Bronze medal also with two misses, 10.2 seconds behind.

The Slovak missed only once at the first prone shooting and showed a perfect result in the next three stages. A defending champion in the pursuit, with two more medals from the last Youth World Championships, added one more title to his case.

“I did not know if I could win the medal because it is hard to do it two years in a row. I was very sick throughout the season, so I'm really happy that it all worked out in the end!”

Sivert Gerhardsen, who brought his team to third place yesterday, collected one penalty at every standing shooting. Leaving the stadium only in fourth, 18.6 seconds behind the leader, he still stayed fourth at the final split point, however, only .5 seconds behind the third. With a strong finish line, the Norwegian not only jumped into the top 3 but also managed to take second place.

Starting the competition with an early bib number 10, Legovic matched the Norwegian on the shooting range with one missed shot at every standing. For the final lap, he left 5 seconds behind Daniel Malusek of the Czech Republic, one of the two clean shooters of the day. Pushing hard on the final lap, he crossed the line in third, bringing the first-ever Youth medal to his country.

Photos: IBU/Yevenko

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