This weekend, the final sets of medals will be awarded at the World Youth and Junior Biathlon Championships, which have already been very successful for Latvia. Hopes were high ahead of the women’s junior mass start, which proved well-founded – Estere Volfa won the silver medal, and Elza Bleidele won the bronze.
Ukrainian Oleksandra Merkushin claimed the gold, covering the 9-kilometer distance with three shooting errors in 29 minutes and 17.1 seconds.
Unlike the adult competition, where 30 athletes participate, 60 biathletes compete in the mass start in both the juniors and youth categories.
Today, the men also competed in the 12 km mass start in the junior category, where Latvia had one representative, Matīss Meirāns, who finished in 56th place. He raced well but his shooting proved to be too erratic to move up the rankings.
This has been a very productive championship for Latvians – first of all, in the first competition, Rihards Lozbers triumphed in the 12.5 km individual distance in the junior classification, but two days later, the Latvian mixed relay team with Meirāns, Lozbers, Volfa and Bleidele in the lineup overtook the biathlon powerhouse Norway in a fierce battle and won gold.
Later, Lozbers, even with three shooting errors in the 7.5 km sprint in the youth competition, managed to win a silver medal, and later Volfa added another gold in the sprint.
It should be noted that Latvia had not previously won any medals at all at youth or junior world championships, so the outlook for Latgvian biathlon looks bright.
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