Doherty ends 2020 with solid pursuit performance

HOCHFILZEN, Austria — Center Conway’s Sean Doherty and his United States biathlon teammates will spend Christmas and New Year’s in Europe preparing for their next series of IBU World Cup races, which are scheduled to begin Jan. 4 in Oberhof, Germany.

“I will be in Europe for Christmas, it is better to avoid extra travel when possible and our holiday break is short, so the past few seasons I have stayed over to make the most of it and prepare for the next block of competition,” Doherty, a 2102 Kennett High graduate, said in a recent interview with the Sun.

Doherty has a message for the Mount Washington Valley.

“I wish the valley well and I would thank the community for all the support that has allowed me to be where I am today,” he said.

Doherty closed the book on the 2020 racing calendar by competing in two World Cup races in Hochfilzen, Austria, the second stop on the 2020-21 tour. It resented the fourth week of racing, all without spectators, for the top biathletes in the world. The season opened on Nov. 27 in Kontiolahti, Finland, where athletes stayed and raced for two weeks. With the COVID-19 pandemic, racing officials are trying to limit the travel and keep the competitors in as safe an environment as possible.

Doherty, 25, had been in Austria since Dec. 7, where he raced in three World Cups that week and two this past week. On Thursday, he finished 51st out of a field of 108 racers in the 10K sprint. He had two misses on the shooting range (one from the prone position and one standing), to finish 2:15.5 behind the winner Sturla Holm Laegreid of Norway, who went 10-10 on the range to win 23:04.9.

It was a clean sweep of the podium by the Norwegians as Johnnes Dale was second, 7.9 seconds back (no misses), and countryman Johannes Thingnes Boe was third, 19.9 seconds back (two misses from the prone position). Ironically, Norway’s Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen was fourth overall, 42.5 seconds back (one miss).

Competitors try to hit five targets from the prone position which are 1.8-inch in diameter targets 50 meters (164 feet) away, and then shoot from a standing position at targets which are 4.5 inches in size, and also 50 meters away.

Leif Nordgren led the U.S., finishing 28th, 1:42.8 back (no misses), followed by Doherty in 51st; Jake Brown, 61st, 2:34.2 back (three misses); and Paul Schommer, 100th, 4:12.2 back (five misses).

The top 60 skiers from the sprint qualify for the 12.5K pursuit. In a pursuit race, the skiers start in the order they finished in the sprint race two days earlier. The skier with the fastest time from the sprint goes first followed by the next skier, who starts the amount of time they were behind the leader. In this case, Laegreid was the first skier on the course, and Dale was next, starting 7.9 seconds later.

The pursuit was on Saturday in warm conditions, sunny and 42-degrees. In the pursuit, each competitor makes four stops at the shooting range, twice shooting from the prone position, followed by two rounds in the standing position. A perfect score would be 20-20, but in this pursuit, each miss meant the athlete had to ski a 150-meter penalty loop. The penalty loop came into play big-time Saturday.

Dale held a slight lead over Laegreid heading into the third round on the range, the first standing round. Laegreid had one miss, but Dale imploded with three misses, meaning three penalty loops, which ended his shot a medal.

Laegreid had only the one miss and skied to victory in 31:14.9.

France’s Emilien Jacquelin was second, 8.5 seconds back (no misses), JT Boe was third, 8.9 seconds back (three misses).

Dale went in to have one more miss on the fourth round of shooting to finish sixth overall, 38.6 seconds back.

Nordgren was the top U.S. finisher, placing 40th, 3:20.3 back (four misses), and Doherty took 45, 3:40.3 back (three misses).

Doherty, a 2014 and 2018 Olympian, is the most decorated junior biathlete ever with 10 career medals (four gold, four silver and two bronze).

The men will open 2021 in Oberhof, Germany, with a 10K sprint race scheduled for Jan. 8, followed by a 12.K pursuit on Jan.9; a 4X6 mixed relay (the first of the season) on Jan. 10; and a single mixed relay (one woman and one man, also the first race of this type this season) on Jan. 10.

The second week of racing in Oberhof is slated for Jan. 13-17, followed by two more weeks in Germany with the action moving south into the Black Forest in Arber, 222 miles away.