Biathlon, not only Dorothea Wierer and Lisa Vittozzi

Thomas Giacomel second

Tommaso Giacomel took full advantage of the absence due to Covid of a fair number of level opponents in the men’s individual in Oestersund earning a more than deserved second place in the competition won by German Benedikt Doll. The 23-year-old from Trentino, only one mistake on the polygon, set up a wonderful challenge for the place of honor against Vetle Christiansen, in which he managed to precede the Norwegian by a couple of seconds, behind an unreachable Doll, the only one of the 97 starters to finish the race with a 20/20 on the polygon.

For Giacomel, who crossed the finish line with a 1’09″1 gap, it was his first podium in an individual World Cup event, the child of a season that saw him make a remarkable leap in quality, with no less than seven top ten finishes and the icing on the cake that came on the Swedish track. Didier Bionaz also did well: the Valdostan, two errors, finished seventeenth at 3’38″8, two places better than Patrick Braunhofer, nineteenth with 1 error at 3’48″3, while Elia Zeni finished fortieth at 5’28″6, with two errors, committed in the first series. Daniele Cappellari, who arrived a few hours ago from Canada, where he took part in the Ibu Cup leg, did not start; he will be available for the relay on Saturday, March 11.

With today’s podium finish, Christiansen closed the specialty standings in his favor with 171 points ahead of Doll with 151 and Martin Ponsiluoma with 132. In the overall, the absent Johannes Boe remains unreachable with 1319 points ahead of the equally absent Sturla Laegreid with 920 and Christiansen with 742. Giacomel climbs to 11th place with 485 and becomes the leader in the under-25 ranking.