Our biathletes started with ninth place for the World Cup

Our biathletes started with ninth place for the World Cup in Östersund in the first start of the season. Our women's 4 x 6 kilometer relay team recorded a very good performance, BTA reports. The Bulgarian women, who were Valentina Dimitrova (pictured), Milena Todorova, Maria Zdravkova and Lora Hristova, showed the best shooting of all 21 relay teams and used only three extra cartridges. Our relay team did not take a single penalty lap.

This allowed us to hold off the strong teams of Germany and Norway, who remained in 11th and 13th place respectively.

The Bulgarian relay team covered the 24 km distance in 1:14.21 hours, which was 2:44.2 minutes slower than the time of the winners from France. Jean Richard, Oceane Michelon, Justine Breza-Bouché and Lou Jeanmono finished with eight extra rounds, no penalty laps and a time of 1:11.17 hours.

Second place went to the Italian team (Dorothea Wierer, Michela Carrara, Lisa Vittozzi, Hanna Auchenthaler), who took one penalty lap and used nine extra rounds. The Italians finished 13.8 seconds behind France.

The Czech Republic (Jessica Islova, Lucie Harvatova, Tereza Vobornikova, Marketa Davidova) also found a place on the podium, which, like France, used eight spare rounds but did not take a penalty lap. The Czechs arrived 30.8 seconds behind the winners. Sweden, Austria and Finland completed the top 6.