Denise herrmann redeems german biathletes with silver coup

After her silver coup, denise herrmann's first reward was a heartfelt kiss from her boyfriend before she beamed at the award ceremony as if freed of a hundredweight burden.

"I'm overjoyed with silver," herrmann said after winning the first medal for the german team at the biathlon world championships in antholz, italy, giving her the liberation she had longed for. She missed out on defending her title with a "tight-ass" mistake on the last shot, but that didn't matter to her: silver won instead of gold lost was the motto.

With her fourth world championship medal, the former cross-country skier celebrated her next major success with the ski jager. "I hope that this will push our team and that it will continue like this next week," said the 31-year-old, who was only beaten by local hero dorothea wierer on sunday. Perhaps the decisive energy boost came the day before from her boyfriend – egg doughnuts. "That was very important, of course," said sachs laughing aloud. Thomas wick remains the lucky charm until the end of the world championships next sunday. On tuesday it's time for herrmann& co continues in singles.

The men are still waiting for a medal. After the good sprint performances only arnd peiffer was in the front as fifth in the chasing pack. "Solid, but those in front didn't make any mistakes," was his comment.

The first excitement of the world championships was caused by the russians. On saturday it became known that relay olympic champion yevgeny ustyugov was banned for doping – the supplementary gold honor for erik lesser, daniel bohm, peiffer and simon schempp for sochi 2014 is therefore drawing ever closer. Shortly afterwards ex-doper alexander loginow won gold in the sprint, rather he took bronze in the chase race behind world champion emilien jacquelin from france and norwegian johannes thingnes bo.

"There is a certain taste in it, because he has been banned before for epo-doping and now he is back at a level like he was when he was abusing EPO," said olympic champion peiffer. But the presumption of innocence applies, "even if that is not always easy". The 28-year-old russian had not yet made an impression in terms of running this season, but duplicated all the top favorites.

Meanwhile, silver was pure "satisfaction" for herrmann after she had previously finished fourth in the mixed relay (4.) and in fifth place in the sprint she had made a decisive mistake at the sliding stand. Overall the women showed a strong performance with vanessa hinz in fifth place and franziska preub in seventh place. "The team performance was terrific," said herrmann and coach kristian mehringer was also relieved: "we got fit at the right time."

Herrmann's story is impressive. In 2012, she picked up a rifle for the first time during a test training in ruhpolding. But despite the fascination, she lacked the courage to make the switch back then. The feeling of not being finished with the cross-country skiing outweighed. But the best german sprinter was hardly able to win against the scandinavian superiority.

Four years later, in spring 2016, she was ready for a new adventure. Herrmann took a risk for successful retraining. She invested and still invests countless hours in push training, also at home in dry training, fine-tuning her weapon and technique. But she shows great meticulousness and professionalism. There were many doubters. At the age of 26, she had to take a back seat in the strong ruhpolding training group. But Herrmann bit his way through.

Only one and a half years after her new start in the sport, herrmann celebrated her first two world cup victories in ostersund before she won a complete set of medals at the last world championships with gold in the pursuit and a silver and bronze medal, even outshining double olympic champion dahlmeier. Now came the next precious metal – and there is no end in sight. Because herrmann is now to the point where she can run on the podium in every race. When she hits. "It's in my hands," she said.