Gilonne Guigonnat left everyone behind.

From Martell to Ridnaun: This French woman is great

The IBU Cup in Ridnaun started on Wednesday with two exciting sprint competitions. In temperatures around freezing point, the French Gilonne Guigonnat and the Norwegian top favorite Johan-Olav Botn prevailed.

10 January 2024

From: pm

Gilonne Guigonnat seems to feel comfortable on South Tyrolean snow. The 25-year-old Frenchwoman also won the sprint in Ridnaun on Wednesday morning, three days after her victory in the pursuit competition in Martell.

Flawless at the shooting range, Guigonnat won with a total time of 20.48,7:5,8 minutes and thus prevented an Italian home victory. Sara Scattolo from Forni Avoltri took second place, 1 seconds behind. The Friulian woman also hit all ten targets. The podium was completed by Norwegian Ida Lien, who set the benchmark time with start number 10. With two shooting errors, she only lost XNUMX seconds to Guigonnat due to her excellent running performance.

Sara Scattolo ran in second place. © Sportissimus

Anna Andexer (+17,5 seconds) took fourth place as the best Austrian, followed immediately behind by the strongest German, Johanna Puff (+29,0). There were also points for the other Azzurre Linda Zingerle (34th) and Martina Trabucchi (35th), who missed out on an even better placement with two and three tickets respectively. Trentino's Fabiana Carpella, however, finished 48th in her IBU Cup debut.

Botn as if from a single source

The 112 registered biathletes arrived in the early afternoon. Here, Johan-Olav Botn made a big impression on his return to the IBU Cup in Oberhof after a detour to the World Cup last week. Flawless at the shooting range and lightning-fast on his skis, the leader of the overall ranking confidently prevailed in 23.05,9:18 minutes. Mats Oeverby took second place, XNUMX seconds behind his teammate. Third place went to Danilo Riethmüller from Germany, who also hit all ten targets and prevented a Norwegian triple success. This was followed by another Norwegian package with three biathletes from the Scandinavian biathlon power: Vebjoern Soerum, Martin Nevland and Martin Uldal.

Johan-Olav Botn (center) beamed from the podium as the winner. © Sportissimus

The best Azzurro on Wednesday was Daniele Cappellari, who was 1.32,7:12 minutes behind Botn with one shooting error and ended up in 29th place. Nicola Romanin made it to the finish line just two positions behind. Nicolò Betemps (32th) and Christoph Pircher from Terlano (XNUMXnd) also finished in the points. There was no great result for David Zingerle from Antholz, who missed six times. Marco Barale also clearly missed out on the points.

Training will take place again in Ridnaun on Thursday before the IBU Cup continues on Friday with two mass starts and ends on Saturday with a mixed relay and a single mixed relay.

The voices of the protagonists from Wednesday:

Gilonne Guigonnat (FRA/winner): I am very satisfied and am looking forward to the next victory in the IBU Cup. I always get going very slowly in competitions, but I know that I can improve as I go along and really give it my all at the end.

Sara Scattolo (ITA/2nd place): What can I say, I'm over the moon. But not necessarily because I made it to the podium in the IBU Cup for the first time in my career, but the way I organized my competition in terms of running and at the shooting range! Am I annoyed by the narrow gap? No, absolutely not. Hopefully this panel is the starting point for more.

Johan-Olav Botn (NOR/winner): What I'm most pleased about is that I've found my shooting form back after things didn't go my way at the World Cup in Oberhof. I have analyzed and discussed things with my trainer for a long time over the past few days. We also made a change. Today I started shooting prone from the right instead of the left and it was a reboot of my system that worked well.

IBU Cup Ridanna 2023/24 – Results:

Sprint women
1. Gilonne Guigonnat FRA 20.48,7/0
2. Sara Scattolo ITA +5,8/0
3. Ida Lien NOR +10,0/2
4. Anna Andexer AUT +17,5/1
5. Johanna Puff GER +29,0/0
6. Selina Grotian GER +37,0/1
7. Karoline Erdal NOR +40,6/1
8. Anna-Karin Heijdenberg SWE +44,8/0
9. Anna Kryvonos UKR +45,5/0
10. Gro Randby NOR +50,7/0

Sprint men
1. Johan-Olav Botn NOR 23.05,9/0
2. Mats Oeverby NOR +18,0/0
3. Danilo Riethmüller GER +26,4/0
4. Vebjoern Soerum NOR +50,7/1
5. Martin Nevland NOR +52,1/1
6. Martin Uldal NOR +1.02,7/1
7. Valentin Lejeune FRA +1.18,7/0
8. Isak Frey NOR +1.22,0/2
9. Jonni Mukkala FIN +1.25,2/0
10. Darius Lodl GER +1.29,