Christoph Stephan

Christoph Stephan
Full name	Christoph Stephan
Association	Germany
birthday	January 12, 1986
place of birth	Rudolstadt (GDR)
Career
job	Police officer ( Federal Police )
society	WSV Oberhof 05
Trainer	Mark Kirchner
Debut in the European Cup / IBU Cup	2003
European Cup / IBU Cup victories	3
Debut in the World Cup	2006
World Cup victories	1
status	resigned
End of career	2015
Medal table
World Cup medals 0 × 1 × 1 × SWM medals 2 × 1 × 0 × EM medals 0 × 1 × 0 × JWM medals 3 × 0 × 1 × DM medals 1 × 1 × 0 ×
Biathlon world championships silver 2009 Pyeongchang singles bronze 2009 Pyeongchang Season  Summer biathlon world championships gold 2009 Oberhof sprint gold 2009 Oberhof Mixed relay silver 2009 Oberhof persecution  European biathlon championships silver 2006 Langdorf Season  Biathlon Junior World Championships bronze 2006 Presque Isle Season gold 2007 Martell sprint gold 2007 Martell persecution gold 2007 Martell Season  German championships gold 2008 Ruhpolding persecution silver 2009 Ruhpolding Mass start gold 2009 Altenberg sprint gold 2009 Langdorf Season
World Cup balance
Mass start world cup	6th ( 2008/09 )
Podium placements 1. 2. 3. singles 0 1 0 sprint 0 0 1 Mass start 1 0 0 Season 2 2 3
last change: January 9, 2014

Christoph Stephan (born January 12, 1986 in Rudolstadt ) is a former German biathlete .

Career

Christoph Stephan, who grew up in Rudolstadt and lives in Oberhof, starts for WSV Oberhof 05. He took his first steps on skis at SV 1883 Schwarza , before moving to the sports high school in Oberhof in 1996 and becoming a member of WSV Oberhof 05. He is trained by former biathlete Mark Kirchner . Stephan was able to achieve great success at the Junior World Championships 2007 in Martell . After finishing sixth in the singles, he won the sprint, the pursuit and the relay, becoming a three-time junior world champion.

He made his debut in the biathlon world cup in 2006 in Kontiolahti in the sprint, which he finished in 56th place. He achieved his first World Cup points in March 2007 when he finished 14th in an individual race in Lahti . A week later he finished 11th in an individual race at the World Cup in Oslo . He achieved his first top ten placement in 2008 on his birthday in Ruhpolding with an 8th place in the sprint. At the beginning of the 2008/09 season he was able to improve his hitherto best result by one place in the first pursuit race of the season in Östersund . He also achieved the best running time in the race. Just three days earlier, Stephan finished 95th in the first individual of the season, his worst result in the World Cup to date. He achieved the first podium of his career during his fourth World Cup relay operation in January 2009 in Ruhpolding, when the relay team, which was reformed due to Michael Greis ' injury and made up of Rösch , Stephan, Peiffer and Lang, surprisingly came in second. Stephan had shortened the gap to the later victorious Norwegians to 2.4 seconds after only one shooting error. His first World Cup victory came a short time later on January 25, 2009 in the mass start race in Antholz , after only one shooting error on the home straight he was able to prevail against Dominik Landertinger and Ivan Tscheresow . Stephan was nominated as one of six German starters for the world championship in Pyeongchang . His first competition ended with 22nd place in the quadruple triumph of the Norwegians in the sprint, in the subsequent pursuit race he fell back to 41st place with eight shooting errors. For the individual competition over 20 km, he therefore only moved up to the team because Andreas Birnbacher was originally supposed to be ill . Here he was much better at shooting when he hit 19 out of 20 targets. He finished second behind Ole Einar Bjørndalen and achieved the greatest success of his career to date. With this performance he qualified as 15th of the overall World Cup at this point, also for the final mass start race, in which he finished 21st. At the final competition in Pyeongchang, he won the bronze medal in the men's relay together with Michael Rösch, Arnd Peiffer and Michael Greis. At the 2009 Summer Biathlon World Championships in Oberhof, Christoph Stephan and Magdalena Neuner , Tina Bachmann and Michael Rösch won the gold medal in the mixed relay and the sprint title. He came in second in the pursuit. At the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, he reached 19th place in the sprint, 23rd place in the mass start, 29th place in the individual race and 30th place in the pursuit in the individual competitions.

In the 2011/12 season , Christoph Stephan voluntarily refrained from participating in the World Cup and the home World Cup in Ruhpolding due to health problems . In the long term, he wanted to prepare for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi .

For the Biathlon World Cup 2012/2013 Stephan was assigned to the promotional squad of the German national team. In the 2013/2014 Olympic season he was promoted to the World Cup team for the first races and qualified for participation in the Olympic Games.

Stephan is engaged to the former biathlete Sabrina Buchholz .

In April 2015 it was announced that Christoph Stephan had retired from his active career to concentrate on working for the Federal Police.

statistics

World Cup placements

The table shows all placements (depending on the year, including the Olympic Games and World Championships).

• 1st - 3rd Place: Number of podium placements
• Top 10: Number of placements in the top ten (including podium)
• Points ranks: Number of placements within the point ranks (including podium and top 10)
• Starts: Number of races run in the respective discipline
• Relay: including mixed relays

placement	singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	total
1st place				1	2	3
2nd place	1				2	3
3rd place		1			3	4th
Top 10	2	6th	4th	3	14th	29
Scoring	9	33	18th	16	14th	90
Starts	16	51	30th	16	14th	127
Status: after the end of your career

winter Olympics

Results at Olympic Winter Games:

	Individual competitions				Relay competitions
	sprint	persecution	singles	Mass start	Men's relay	Mixed relay
2010 Winter Olympics | Vancouver	19th	30th	29	23.	-
Olympic Winter Games 2014 | Sochi	57.	43.	-	-	-	-

Awards

• Golden Ski 2009
• Thuringian Sportsman of the Year 2009

Web links

Commons : Christoph Stephan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Christoph Stephan in the IBU database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ First Norwegian relay win of the season . biathlon-online.de. January 15, 2009. Accessed on January 26, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ IBU WORLD CUP - Ruhpolding (GER) Men Relay . International Biathlon Union. January 15, 2009. Retrieved January 26, 2009.
3. ↑ IBU WORLD CUP - Anterselva (ITA) Men 15 km Mass Start . International Biathlon Union. January 25, 2009. Retrieved January 26, 2009.
4. ↑ Vancouver 2010 15 km mass start men ( Memento from February 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ mass starts at the Olympics - biathletes targeted by criticism
6. ↑ Christoph Stephan: Different than planned . November 27, 2011. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
7. ↑ Biathlon: Gone with the Wind. In: Badische Zeitung. November 25, 2013. Retrieved November 28, 2013 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b} Christoph Stephan: “Just watching was hard” . biathlon-online.de. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
9. ↑ Christoph Stephan ends biathlon career . biathlon-online.de. Retrieved April 19, 2015.