Biathlon | After his ousting last winter, Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen hasn’t quite moved on : “It should have been a wake-up call about the way athletes are treated”

Biathlon : Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen gets winter off to a flying start

Winner of the sprint and an excellent second in the mass start of the Norwegian opening biathlon races in Sjusjøen (Norway) on 16 and 17 November, Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen proved that he is in good form as the first World Cup races get underway.

“It went much better than expected, he told Dagbladet after his first winter races. It wasn’t entirely anticipated that everything would go so well this weekend”. Fifth in the last general ranking, the Norwegian has been one of his team’s stalwarts for several seasons now.

However, the winter of 2023/2024 has not been a smooth one for the solid Scandinavian. In January, he was dropped by his coaches after a series of below-par performances. His absence in Oberhof (Germany) was described as an “incompetent decision” by the player himself, speaking to TV2.

When asked again about last winter’s imbroglio, Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen was once again unsympathetic to the Norwegian authorities. “I don’t think it was a wake-up call for me. We were all very aware of the competition within the group, he recalls. I think it should have been a wake-up call to the management about the way the athletes are treated.“

Despite the months, the 32-year-old biathlete is still finding it hard to wipe the slate clean: “He still feels it was a mistake to leave him out of the group“, even admits Per Arne Botnan, the national team manager, who believes he made the right choice when the time came: “I still think we did the right thing“, he concludes.

Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen is in a much better position than last year with just a few days to go before the start of the competition, and is desperate not to go through the same situation of being sidelined.

Read also

• Norwegian opening races in Sjusjøen: Eric Perrot fourth in the sprint won by Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen, Fabien Claude fifth
• Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen out of World Cup squad for Oberhof: reactions
• “Incompetent decisions”: Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen’s anger at his federation after being sidelined from the World Cup
• Nove Mesto: why Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen broke down in tears on the pursuit podium

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.