EM silver for Felix Karpfinger
Created: 02/18/2022, 13:01
By: Dieter Priglmeir
The quartet from Austria was in a class of its own: Felix Karpfinger (right) and the German team easily won silver – well ahead of Italy.
The individual finals will take place on Friday.
© DESV
The long-distance shooter from Erding celebrates with the national team and also makes it into the individual final, which is on Friday.
Ritten/Erding
– Fantastic weather, 30 centimeters of fresh snow – South Tyrol once again showed its best side this week.
And then silver is dangling from Felix Karpfinger's neck.
The 17-year-old Erdinger took second place at the European Long Distance Shooting Championships with the German U19 national team.
He also qualified for the individual championship, which will rise this Friday.
Silver in such an international competition - "that's pretty good," said Karpfinger after the competition.
But some things bothered the athlete: "The Austrians were very superior.
Somehow we didn't find our way into the tournament.
We could all have easily shot a little further.”
In fact, there was almost a class difference on the speed skating rink of the Ritten Arena in Klobenstein.
The quartet from Austria had already scored almost 35 meters more than the DESV selection last year.
This time the lead even grew to over 50 meters.
The old and new European champion reached 404.61 meters.
Karpfinger and his club colleague from SC Oberhummel, Maximilian Kloiber, as well as Johannes Michl (SV Pocking) and Maximilian Mayer (SV Ostermünchen) came to 350.95 meters.
But that was easily enough to put hosts Italy (294.36 meters) in their place.
Missed a sensation, reached the minimum target – Karpfinger could check it off like this.
But he doesn't.
"I'm very unhappy with myself," he says.
It bothers him that he only had one valid and four invalid attempts.
"I shot so confidently in the Bavarian, the German and the qualification course.
I can't explain why I wasn't in such a good mood, even though I felt fit and warmed up very well."
With his 114.58 meters he still made it into the individual final.
He was 84 centimeters better than teammate Kloiber, who has to watch in seventh place.
Karpfinger is skeptical about today's final.
The medal chances are “mixed”.
Maybe third place is possible, “if I shoot as concentrated as I usually do.
Otherwise it will be very difficult.” This is also reflected in the top distances of the five competitors: The Austrians Sebastian Sommerer (141.58), Andreas Knaus (138.37) and Marcel Progsch (124.66) as well as Karpfinger’s teammate Michl (121, 47) and Mayer (114.90) were all better on Wednesday.
However, giving up is not an option for the nanny from Erding and would not suit the mood that prevails in South Tyrol.
And that's not only due to the "beautiful weather", as Karpfinger reports, "I feel very comfortable in our team.
We have a lot to laugh about and we stick together very well as a team.”