It's up to eight degrees this Friday in Oberhof, where the relay races of the Biathlon World Championships are to take place on Saturday. It is unclear whether this is actually possible. Rain and wind make the track worse. Storm gusts could even lead to cancellation.
The relays at the Biathlon World Championships should be one of the highlights, now their holding on Saturday is questionable. Due to an official weather warning of gusts of wind with speeds of up to 85 kilometers per hour, the world association will only decide on Saturday morning whether the men's races will be held from 11.45 a.m. and the women's races from 3 p.m. (both ARD and Eurosport). This was announced by the IBU and the Organizing Committee (OC).
The gusts of wind could lead to dangers on the competition course, it said. "The safety of all athletes and our fans is our top priority, both on arrival and at the competitions," said OC boss Thomas Grellmann.
On Friday, it rained long and hard in Oberhof with strong winds and temperatures of up to eight degrees. The conditions were already difficult during training the day before the team competitions and the track suffered from the external influences. After the relays, two more mass starts will take place in the Thuringian Forest on Sunday.
It wouldn't be the first time that the weather had an impact on the World Cup programme. In 2004, the men's singles had to be postponed due to fog at the last title fights in Oberhof. In 1999, the start of the World Championships in Kontiolahti was postponed by six days due to freezing temperatures of up to minus 35 degrees Celsius, and in the end there were only three days of World Championship decisions in Finland. The IBU then subsequently held the WCH individual and mass start competitions at the World Cup finals in Oslo.
At the World Championships a year later in Oslo, the last decision, the men's relay, had to be canceled in the middle of the race due to the fog getting thicker and thicker. It was then made up for at the subsequent World Cup in Lahti, Finland.
