France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet took control of this afternoon’s Ruhpolding men’s 10 km sprint after closing the last standing target for a perfect shooting day and sealed the win with a powerful last loop, finishing in 23:23.7. Late started Benedikt Doll of Germany also shot clean, making a valiant attempt to top the Yellow Bib, but fell 7.2 seconds short in second place. Belarusian Anton Smolski, with one penalty finished third, 32.1 seconds back.

Lithuania’s Vytautas Strolia, had a career day, shooting clean in fourth place, 33.6 seconds back, improving his career best from 12th earlier this season in the Hochfilzen sprint. Finland’s Tero Seppala, shot clean finishing in a career-best fifth place, 41.9 seconds back. Doll’s teammate Erik Lesser with one penalty finished in a season-best sixth place, 43.3 seconds back.

Perfect conditions; wind flags flat

The men had just as perfect winter conditions for their sprint as the women had yesterday: blue skies, a bit warmer, just above freezing and once again, the shooting range wind flags were completely flat. Sebastian Samuelsson with bib 4 started the day by cleaning prone with ease. Red Bib Jacquelin was the fastest into the range, but missed a shot putting him 15 seconds back. Fillon Maillet, in the Yellow Bib came to the range next and cleaned, 2.9 seconds back in the third spot. Number 43 Smolski threw his hat into the ring with his own clean prone stage, just 4.3 seconds back. However, Doll with his best prone stage of the season, just a half second slower than Samuelsson, got into the potential podium mix.

Doll Challenges

Samuelsson missed twice in standing, knocking out of contention for the win. Unheralded Strolia, after a solid clean prone stage came to standing next, going to 10-for-10, putting him in the lead. Fillon Maillet had a 4-second lead by the time he reached the standing stage, then shot fast and clean to leave with a 19 second bulge on the field. Seppala, after the tenth fastest, but clean prone stage, picked up the pace with a clean standing, leaving for the last loop in third position, seven seconds behind Strolia. Despite one penalty, Smolski left standing a spot and .7 seconds ahead of the Finn. The 2017 IBU Sprint World Champion Doll showed he was in a position to give the Yellow Bib a run for the victory by cleaning standing and leaving 2.3 seconds back.

Victory for Fillon Maillet

Strolia went to the top of the leaderboard initially. However, Fillon Maillet continued to add to his lead after standing, by the 8.7 km split, it was up to 24 seconds and further up to 29 seconds with 600 meters to go. Doll later cut into that gap. Smolski gained a few seconds by the 9.4 km split, and was still behind the Lithuanian, but powered down the last hill to slip into second at the finish by 1.5 seconds. With his head bobbing from side-to-side as is his style, Doll kept pushing, dropping the Yellow Bib’s lead to 1.87 seconds by the 8.7 km split. However, he fell to 5.8 seconds behind of Fillon Maillet by 9.4 km and finished second. Fillon Maillet had his second career sprint victory.

Last standing crucial for Smolski

Smolski knew it would be hard to make the podium and that the standing stage would be decisive for him. “I am very glad about this podium. For me it is a great honor to be on the podium. In Ruhpolding, usually the results are quite tough and tight so I am happy I made it to the podium in the end.” Regarding the last standing, “I was informed about where I was on every centimeter of the track. I knew how much seconds I was losing to Quentin so when I came to the final standing, I was just trying to be calm and shoot clean. Unfortunately, it did not work out and I had a mistake with the last shot.”

Photos: IBU/Walter