Power failure at the biathlon in Ruhpolding: Suddenly the juice is gone – sport

They were striving for normalcy in Ruhpolding, and the stadium announcer Karlheinz Kas, whom everyone here just calls Kasi, has contributed to this for decades. So Kasi heated up the thousands in the Chiemgau Arena, just like he always did. He praised the chief preparator for his work of art, for having modeled a World Cup trail in the brown-green landscape despite the plus degrees. And then, the stadium clock showed 2.50 p.m., the stadium announcer fell silent in the middle of a sentence. It took seconds for the thousands to realize that if Kasi falls silent, then normality is over.

Power failure at the start of the biathlon competitions in Ruhpolding: the video display failed, the display of the live results, the ARD television picture and also the lighting of the shooting range and the floodlights. The timing, however, still worked, secured by emergency power batteries. And so the athletes and their audience could count themselves lucky that they did not find themselves in the middle of a floodlit night event on this Wednesday. That’s how the athletes continued without artificial light and without Kasi’s comments as if nothing had happened.

As is often the case in this World Cup season, the Norwegians coped best with all of this. Johannes Thingnes Boe defeated his compatriot Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen (one penalty minute) with a lead of 9.9 seconds despite two penalties. The Slovenian Jakov Fak finished third – without a shooting error, but not a Norwegian. Just as little as Benedikt Doll, who could still have won the race. Then if he hadn’t missed the second prone shot. Without this penalty minute, he would have had a 3.7 second lead over the winner, Boe. He finished sixth as the best German.

And so the German energy output on this first day from Ruhpolding could be described as changeable, which was not least due to the power grid. Thanks to the Ruhpolding depot, they had just repaired the lack of snow. However, they were not able to solve the local energy crisis completely on an ad hoc basis. The power went out several more times during the afternoon, some during shooting bouts at the shooting range. Later, the current in the stadium was deliberately kept to a minimum in order to secure the competition.

According to reports, the emergency batteries were empty two minutes after the end of the race, it was just enough to get everyone to the finish. Doll later explained that he only found out about the mishap from shouts from the side of the track. It didn’t affect him. The jury discussed the case – and finally evaluated the race. “Nice that the time was recorded,” said Doll. “A 20-kilometer run is quite a lot of work and you put a lot of energy into it.”

Initially, nothing precise could be heard in the stadium about the cause of the failure. After all: Karlheinz Kas could be heard again six minutes after the first blackout. He used his effort to play a hopeful piece of music: Falco with “Out of the dark”.