Russia's Alexey Katrenko won his second gold today after the victoy in yesterday's Cross-Sprint. After six kilometers the 23-year-old finished 16.9 seconds ahead of his team-mate Sergey Baladin - despite eight shooting errors in the four bouts. Baladin only missed twice and improved from his six rank after the sprint to the silver position. Bronze went to Kazach Dias Keneshev. Yesterday's silver medalist left five of the twenty targets black and finished 53.9 seconds behind Katrenko.

Ruslan Nasirov (UZB) who won the bronze medal yesterday, missed ten (!) targets but managed to finish in fourth position thanks to an outstanding running performance.

German Frank Roettgen improves from 14 to 6

Improving from rank 14 after the Sprint to sixth place, German Frank Roettgen with only two shooting errors and a solid perfomance on the track made the biggest jump in the rankings today.

Yunusov wins second junior title

Junior Anuzar Yunusov of Uzbekhistan won his second title in today’s 6km Pursuit. Evevn though he recorded eight penalties, his finshing time of  23:21.1 minutes was fast enough to defend his starting position.

Silver and bronze went to Russia with Rinat Gilazov taking second place (4 penalties/+24.4 seconds) and Maxim Adiev winning bronze (7/+1:04 minutes). Both Russians took their first medals at these World Championships.

Men's Cross-Biathlon competitons completed

All titles in Cross-Biathlon have been awarded now, tomorrow the roller skiers take over.

Sidorenko takes Second Gold in Pursuit
Senior women cross competitions end with shooting error festival

Then sun was shining brightly when the women went on the track for their 5km Cross-Biathlon-Pursuit but there was a nasty wind blowing as well. So, the senior women cross competitions ended with a shooting error festival where once more Russian Ekaterina Siderenko won the gold medal – despite her seven penalty laps. Towering high above the rest  she crossed the finishing line in 22:40.6 minutes, her teammate Lubov Eremolova, with just four misses, 1:49.7 minutes behind. Elena Khrustaleva (+2:24.7/5) secured the bronze medal.

23-year-old Siderenko already had had an advantage of 46 seconds from yesterday’s Sprint over Eremolova (32) when she started the Pursuit. And even though the challenging 5km-track in 1750 meters altitude took a higher toll from Siderenko at the shooting range, the young Russian ran over a minute faster than her training-mate. Thus, Eremolova had to settle with silver for a second time.

Khrustaleva breaks Russian dominance

Elena Khrustaleva prevailed in the fight for the remaining spot on the podium when she relegated yesterday’s bronze winner Anastasia Kuznetsova to fourth place by ten seconds. Kuznetsova’s  seven penalties just proved to be too much on the track.

In the Junior Women’s 5K Pursuit, the top three repeated, just as had occurred in the Women’s Sprint. Irina Maximova of Russia took first, followed by teammate Alexandra Valishina, with Vera Kalbianok of Belarus in third. All three medalists had seven penalties, with Maximova winning in 24:19.1, followed by Valishina 23.1 seconds back and Kalbianok 1:02.1 back.
 
Tom Klein
www.biathlonworld.com
25.09.2008, Haute Maurienne Vanoise