Antholz (dpa) - Franziska Preuß and Erik Lesser won silver at the Biathlon World Championships in Antholz, Italy. The duo only had to defeat defending champions Norway.
Preuss and Lesser took third place in the pursuit of Denise Herrmann and Vanessa Hinz in the singles for the third medal of the German team. Preuss and Lesser made a total of five spare rounds and ended up 17.6 seconds behind the winner. France secured bronze from Sweden.
Lesser, who hadn't got into shape during the season due to health problems, was nominated despite only half of the World Cup standard. It was not used in the first week of the World Cup and was instead active in the second-class IBU Cup. There he had collected competition kilometers again and demonstrated an increase in form.
After a day off, the relays will be on Saturday before the two mass start races will follow on Sunday.
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