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February 21, 2006 on the track of Cesana San Sicario biathlon program at the XX Olympic Winter Games includes the men's relay. On the eve to memorize options do not take counter the choices of technical staff, bens & igrave; the scandal that has engulfed the & rsquo; Austria.
Sunday 21 February 2016 17 minutes reading time
In the night between 18 and 19 February the Police have carried out a search in the rooms, which accommodate biathletes and cross-country skiers rot-wei & szlig; -rot. L & rsquo; & egrave operation; taken in response to notification of the presence of Walter Mayer, & nbsp; banned by the IOC for what happened to previous Olympic Games Salt Lake City 2002.
Four years before the coach he served as sports director of the Austrian Nordic industry. A few days after the end of the event, the room occupied by cross-country skiers Marc Mayer (& ccedil; va sans dire, son of Walter) and Achim Walcher, was found material used for the & rsquo; self-blood transfusion. The Olympic Committee, after a & rsquo; survey, decided to prevent all & rsquo; coach and two athletes to attend the two future events at Five circles (2006 and 2010).
Sports institutions have sensed it stinks for over a month, when a Wada inspector sees a commemorative postcard of the Austrian team for the Torino 2006 which, along with biathletes and coaches, also appears the same Mayer.
On the evening of February 18 snaps l & rsquo; operation of the forces of & rsquo; Italian order. Mayer & ndash; that effectively & egrave; aggregated on the sly to the Austrian team & ndash; rocambolescamente manages to escape, but his escape ends in Austria, when crashing into a police checkpoint.
The search leads to the discovery of syringes and blood bags in the room Wolfgang Perner (fourth in the sprint of a few days before) and Wolfgang Rottmann. The two are immediately expelled from the event. A year later they will be disqualified for life and removed from all 2006 Turin charts.
Will open & agrave; also a criminal process that will end & agrave; in July 2012 with the conviction of the two athletes and technical Emil Hoch. The other six defendants & ndash; including Mayer, the president of the Austrian Football Association Peter Schr & ouml; ksnadel and sporting director Markus Gandler & ndash; They will be acquitted. & nbsp; Meanwhile to memorize options Mayer ends to the bar for a & rsquo; other affair in Austria, where in 2011 he was found guilty of & nbsp; trafficking of doping substances and sentenced to 15 months in prison.
After this edifying excursus, we can get to & rsquo; competitive aspect. For what has been seen in the individual trials Norway & egrave; the great favorite, with Germany representing the & rsquo; pi & ugrave alternative; credible. France and Russia are very listed in optical podium, but they have something less than the Germans and especially the Scandinavians.
Among the eligible candidates for the medals they are made a pair of non-obvious choices. In field Teutonic you opt to give confidence to Michael R & ouml; sch, while individual bad, considering it more & ugrave; reliable at the range of Alexander Wolf, finished in & rsquo; penalty & agrave ring; played in the relay in Hochfilzen, and Oberhof.
The reasoning of the head coach Frank Ullrich has its perch & eacute; and the same ratio & egrave; followed by the Russians, who decide to exclude the & rsquo; exuberant Maxim Tchoudov. At twenty-three of Ufa are the preferred & rsquo; experience Pavel Rostovtsev and solidity & agrave; to Nikolay Kruglov shot.
The race begins and soon the field values ​​go belly up.
Among the general surprise, the star of the launch & egrave; the American Jay Hakkinen, who takes the luxury to disconnect all change in the head with a small edge on the young Czech Ondrej Moravec. Third & egrave; German Ricco Gross concrete, while the & rsquo; Italy & egrave; fourth thanks to a great Christian De Lorenzi. Even fifth Polish Wieslaw Ziemianin.
The first segment has in fact blatantly put big difficulties & agrave; quartets highly rated. On all the Norwegian, with Halvard Hanevold undertone to cede the baton far away from the top positions in the French company Julien Robert, as always as precise as unremarkable skiing. Russians also do not fare well Because & eacute; Ivan Tcherezov risked the round of penalty & agrave; ground saving themselves in extremis. So between the superpowers as Germany has accumulated an important advantage of 23 & rdquo; on Russia and almost 50 & rdquo; of Norway and France.
In the second half Michael R & ouml; sch becomes the protagonist of a great performance that allows the Teutonic quartet to take lone control of operations. The twenty-three of Altenberg bay to defend skiing and & egrave; a machine to throw, where it covers all the targets with a rapidity & agrave; impressive even without using a recharge. In mid & agrave; then the race & egrave; Germany drove the ball with a margin of about half a minute on the surprising Italy and Poland, at altitude thanks to a pi & ugrave performance; that positive Ren & eacute; Laurent Vuillermoz and Tomasz Sikora. The Poles are destined to disappear from the radar screen, because they have no other good athletes, while the Blues begin caressing the medal dream.
The fight for the podium & egrave; Because still wide open & eacute; France has maintained the gap in & rsquo; order of 50 & rdquo; thanks to a convincing Vincent Defrasne, hooking a Russia that its part has lost ground because of the difficulty & agrave; on Sergei Tchepikov skiing. The great Norwegian favorites are on & rsquo; edge of the precipice, since & eacute; Stian Eckhoff extremely hard and ninth change to almost a minute and a half.
Scandinavians finally wrecked the ground polygon in the third quarter that will change & agrave; in a definitive way the physiognomy of the race. Frode Andresen runs into a debacle condemning definitely Norway, still fasts of gold after having won 6 of 7 in Nagano in 1998 and Salt Lake City 2002!
Sven Fischer in the lead instead is making its voice, but has in turn a vacuum passage and end up in a matter of penalty & agrave; at the standing shooting. At the same time the Italian hopes vanish Since & eacute; they come out all the limits in this part of Paolo Longo, still firmly in second place, but in the season credited a 60% shooting in the standing. & nbsp; There & rsquo; & egrave; miracle for the Trent twenty-eight, had to go twice & rsquo; ominous ring. Blue definitely lose the train to the podium.
Despite the blunder by Fischer, Germany remains in the lead. A great Pavel Rostovtsev has to memorize options Russia reported only 18 & rdquo; delay, while a good Ferreol Cannard allows France to settle in third place at 40 & rdquo; by tread, albeit achieved by Sweden that, after the inconclusive evidence of Jakub Borjesson and Bj & ouml; rn Ferry, & egrave; ski with arrogance from the sidelines until the struggle for medals, driven by a Mattias Nilsson sensational! Yet fully in the running for the metals as the Czech Republic, slipped back into the second village because of chronic problems standing Zdenek Vitek, but still in contact with the transalpine and Swedish thanks to a solid Roman Dostal.
& Nbsp; The fourth stage & egrave; throbbing. Michael Greis of skiing is unmatched, but on the ground & egrave; forced to resort to two refills, finding himself dangerously approached by a Raphael Poir & eacute; and perfect, able to knock down as many as 25 of the 40 seconds of inherited gearbox detachment. Nikolay Kruglov does not however manage to keep the pace of the German and French, falling in third place and even put in the crosshairs by a brilliant Carl Johan Bergman. Michal Å lesingr suffers, but remains in the wake those preceding, hoping to take advantage of the misfortunes of others.
In the second round the Bavarian raises the & rsquo; rod, gaining some ground on all pursuers. After which & eacute; closes the shooting game using a single charge, fly away when others have not yet opened. Standing transalpine comes into difficulty & agrave ;, while the Russian & egrave; clean and undisturbed again towards the square d & rsquo; honor. The native of thirty-one & rsquo; Isere is even finds himself cornered when the Swede back on track using a single extra bullet. On & rsquo; edge of the abyss you save and puts in motion, but the Scandinavian & egrave; forward 12 & rdquo ;. The Czech instead has no way to enter the contest.
If Greis and Kruglov run through the final round in relative tranquility & agrave ;, because their positions are crystallized, behind Bergman and Poir & eacute; and are staging an all & rsquo; stab duel with the French to recover gradually the less quoted rival. L & rsquo; engagement comes at all & rsquo; beginning of the long straight d & rsquo; arrival and the two are produced in a dramatic sprint in parallel. A few meters from the finish the Nordic opts for pushing skating leg, in order to increase the speed & agrave ;, but stumbles, loses his balance all & rsquo; back and loses l & rsquo; inertia while the & rsquo; opponent dives forward, winning more & ugrave step; the bottom of the podium literally by centimeters. & nbsp;
So gold Germany, for which the 2006 Turin is becoming a triumphal march. Silver Russia, finally medal also in the men, and bronze for a more & ugrave; that satisfied France. Fourth Sweden, stayed with a fist of flies after the last touch on this great enterprise. Fifth Norway, ski in & rsquo; last lap thanks to a monster performance Bj ø rndalen. Sixth good Czech Republic, while the & rsquo; Italy concludes eighth after flirting with the podium.
February 23 will go & agrave; staged the women's relay, while the men's program will close & agrave; with mass start, 26.
TORINO 2006 & ndash; RELAY MEN 1. GER [Gross, R & ouml; sch, Fischer, Greis] (1 + 8) 1: 21 & rsquo; 51 & rdquo; 5 2. RUS [Tcherezov, Tchepikov, Rostovtsev, Kruglov] (0 + 6) 20 & rdquo; 9 3 . FRA [Robert, Defrasne, Cannard, Poir & eacute; e] (0 + 6) to 43 & rdquo; 6 4. SWE [Borjesson, Ferry, Nilsson, Bergman] (0 + 12) to 43 & rdquo; 6 5. NOR [Hanevold, Eckhoff , Andresen, Bj ø rndalen] (2 + 9) to 1 & rsquo; 12 & rdquo; 1 6. CZE [Moravec, Vitek, Dostal, Slesingr] (1 + 11) to 1 & rsquo; 12 & rdquo; 5. 8. ITA [De Lorenzi, Vuillermoz, Longo, Pallhuber] (2 + 10) to 1 & rsquo; 49 & rdquo; 4
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