SIMEN KRUEGER IS GETTING CLOSE TO MEDAL FORM

Fourth place last week in the skiathlon in Lillehammer, now also fourth place in Davos in the 15 km skating. The 24 year old began the race in a reserved manner, only in 19th place after 2.2 kilometres. But then Hegstad Krueger lit the turbo and didn’t lose any more time over the last 12 kilometres, achieving his second best career result in individual to-date, only 21.3 seconds off the winning time. This was a prestigious result: the fastest Viking in fourth place. “I’m a little bit disappointed to have come fourth again. But the positive thing is: I feel confident and it was a big step towards the Olympic Games. But at the end of the day the others on the podium had more power”, Hegstad Krueger reflected, who has now taken fifth place in the distance World Cup.

Another strong sign of life came from the Swiss Atomic athlete Jonas Baumann (27) who came in 11th. After a steady race he achieved the second best individual result of his career to-date. In the sprint competitions Hanna Falk showed slightly improving form. The Swede qualified in 13th place in the qualifying, came second in the quarter finals for the last 12, but then was eliminated in 5th place in that round. Sondre Fossli Turvoll (NOR), 8th in the qualifying, narrowly missed getting into the semi-finals by three tenths of a second and came in in 14th place.

The Redster team colleague Benjamin Weger also showed strong form at the 2nd stop of the Biathlon World Cup in Hochfilzen. The Swiss racer only missed one target and came in 7th place, just like at the season opening in Östersund, only 25 seconds off the podium. After a fair to middling pursuit (6 misses) Weger delivered his best performance in the relay. The 28 year old, the second skier for the Swiss team, didn’t make any mistakes and cut the deficit by half from 1:20 to 40 seconds. In the end that was enough for the Swiss relay team to come 7th.

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