Nawrath Wins Oestersund Sprint for First-ever Victory
Germany’s Philipp Nawrath took the lead in this afternoon’s Oestersund Men’s 10 km Sprint after cleaning the standing stage and never looked back, speeding over the last loop for his first-ever BMW IBU World Cup victory in 24:02. Nawrath’s also with his first individual podium, besides shooting clean, skied extremely fast, adding three seconds to his margin of victory from the standing stage to the finish line.
“Felt strong…faster, loop-to-loop”
Nawrath, the sprint Bronze medalist in last year’s IBU OECH, was proud of his strength today. “It is really amazing (to be a World Cup winner). I am really proud of this race. I reached my best. Tactically, I had a good race, going faster loop-to-loop. It feels very great.”
Showing a lot of emotion at the finish line, he compared today and his medal-winning effort last January, he added, “My thoughts went to last year when I reached my best result at the European Championships. There was the highlight of the season and today felt a little the same, because I was strong on track and felt really good. It was hard to push to the finish line, but I had good power.”
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Norway’s Tarjei Boe, matched Nawrath with perfect shooting, but finished second18.7 seconds back for his fifth career podium in Oestersund. His young teammate Vebjoern Soerum, also shooting clean, earned his first-ever podium in third place, 19.8 seconds back. Soerum’s previous best World Cup result was 23rd in last March’s Oslo sprint.
The men’s first sprint of the season found light snow falling again, -13C temperature and light winds, a perfect stage for clean shooting. After the favorite JT Boe picked up an uncharacteristic two penalties, dropping from contention, Samuelsson flew into the prone stage, cleaned, taking a 22-second lead. Tarjei mustered the second-best prone time but was 18 seconds behind. Nawrath threw his name in the hat with clean prone stage faster than Tarjei, a dozen seconds behind the Swede.
Nawrath Takes Control
Samuelsson missed two shots in standing, losing much of his one-minute plus margin. Stroemsheim’s second clean stage put him 7.4 seconds back with 3.3 km to go. Tarjei was perfect in standing, going 10 seconds up on Samuelsson. Yet, Nawrath cleaned his second stage going out 16 seconds faster than Tarjei. Soerum also cleaned standing, leaving third.
Samuelsson and Stroemsheim’s strong last loops put them 1-2 momentarily. Nawrath upped the gap to 17.8 seconds over Tarjei at the 8.8 km split. The German flew down the last hill, sealing his first-ever World Cup victory. Soerum held his fast pace over the last loop, locking in third place, his first-ever World Cup podium.
BMW IBU World Cup 1 Oestersund Men's Sprint
Sweden’s Sebastain Samuelsson, with two penalties, finished fourth, 26.7 seconds back. Norwegians Johannes Dale-Skjevdal and Endre Stroemsheim both shot clean in fifth and sixth place, 46.6 and 48.2 seconds back.
Photos: IBU/Per Danielsson, Nordic Focus
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