Erik Lesser

Erik Lesser
Association	Germany
birthday	17th May 1988 (age 32)
place of birth	Suhl,  GDR
Career
job	Sports soldier
society	SV Eintracht Frankenhain
Trainer	Mark Kirchner
Admission to the national team	2007 (C)
Debut in the European Cup / IBU Cup	2009
European Cup / IBU Cup victories	8th
Debut in the World Cup	2010
World Cup victories	5 (2 individual wins)
status	active
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 2 × 1 × World Cup medals 2 × 3 × 2 × EM medals 2 × 1 × 1 × DM medals 7 × 6 × 3 × JWM medals 1 × 0 × 1 × JSWM medals 2 × 0 × 0 ×
winter Olympics silver 2014 Sochi singles silver 2014 Sochi Season bronze 2018 Pyeongchang Season  Biathlon world championships bronze 2013 Nové Město Season gold 2015 Kontiolahti persecution gold 2015 Kontiolahti Season silver 2016 Oslo Season silver 2019 Östersund Season silver 2020 Antholz Single mixed relay bronze 2020 Antholz Season  European biathlon championships gold 2010 Otepää Season silver 2010 Otepää persecution gold 2011 Ridnaun Season gold 2012 Osrblie Season bronze 2012 Osrblie singles  German championships silver 2008 Oberhof Season gold 2011 Langdorf Season silver 2012 Altenberg Mixed relay bronze 2012 Altenberg persecution gold 2012 Oberhof singles silver 2012 Oberhof Mass start bronze 2013 Langdorf persecution gold 2013 Langdorf Season silver 2014 Altenberg sprint bronze 2014 Altenberg persecution gold 2014 Oberhof singles gold 2016 Oberhof Season silver 2017 Bavarian Eisenstein persecution silver 2018 Altenberg persecution gold 2018 Oberhof Season gold 2019 Ruhpolding Season  Biathlon Junior World Championships gold 2009 Canmore Season bronze 2009 Canmore singles  Junior Summer Biathlon World Championships gold 2009 Oberhof Roller ski sprint gold 2009 Oberhof Roller ski pursuit
World Cup balance
Overall World Cup	10. ( 2014/15 , 2016/17 )
Individual World Cup	07. (2014/15)
Sprint World Cup	10. ( 2012/13 )
Pursuit World Cup	05. (2014/15)
Mass start world cup	05. (2016/17)
Podium placements 1. 2. 3. singles 0 0 1 sprint 0 0 1 persecution 1 1 1 Mass start 1 1 2 Season 3 14th 8th
last change: end of season 2019/20

Erik Lesser (born May 17, 1988 in Suhl ) is a German biathlete . His greatest successes to date are the double world championship title in the pursuit and the relay at the 2015 World Cup and winning the silver medal in the 20 km individual competition at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Career

Beginnings

Erik Lesser (starting number 1) at the start of the pursuit race in the IBU Cup 2009 in Ridnaun, which he won as well as the individual and sprint

Erik Lesser, grandson of cross-country skier Axel Lesser , mainly trains in Oberhof . His trainer is Mark Kirchner , previously Peter Sendel . Lesser started cross-country skiing at the age of six and switched to biathlon in 1999 at the age of eleven. The graduate of the Oberhof sports high school starts for SV Eintracht Frankenhain . The sports soldier contested his first international races in 2006 as part of the Junior European Cup in Obertilliach . In his second race, a pursuer, he was sixth in the top ten. A year later he came second in the same place in an individual and thus achieved a podium finish for the first time. Two more podium finishes followed by 2008, Lesser was unable to win a Junior European Cup race.

In 2008 he started his first Junior World Championship in Ruhpolding and finished seventh in the individual, 16th in the sprint and eighth in the pursuit. A year later he won the bronze medal in the individual competition in Canmore , was eleventh in the sprint and pursuit and won as a starter together with Simon Schempp , Benedikt Doll and Florian Graf Staffelgold. After the JWM, Lesser was allowed to compete in the senior IBU Cup 2008/09 for the first time and won his first three races there in Ridnaun at the season finale . In the summer he won the sprint and pursuit titles on roller skis at the Junior Summer World Championships in Oberhof .

First World Cup appearances (season 2009/10 to 2011/12)

In the 2009/10 season Lesser started continuously in the IBU Cup . There he was able to win a race and was among the top twenty athletes in almost all races. At the European Championships in Otepää , Lesser won gold in the men's relay and silver in the pursuit together with Simon Schempp, Daniel Böhm and Christoph Knie . Already in the sprint he achieved good results with sixth place and in the individual with fourth place.

After the European Championships, Lesser was allowed to compete in the World Cup for the first time . At its World Cup premiere in Kontiolahti on March 12, 2010, Lesser took second place in the German mixed relay with Kati Wilhelm , Magdalena Neuner and Simon Schempp. He finished his debut in an individual race in 44th in the sprint, qualifying for the pursuit, which Lesser finished in 51st place.

The following season Lesser started again in the IBU Cup. However, he did not enter the competitions until the beginning of 2011, but was able to win his first race, the individual in Nové Město . Lesser was also the first to finish the last two races before the European Championship. With these good results, we went to the European Championships in Ridnaun . However, he could not quite build on the good results from the previous year. The men's relay with Robin Kiel , Benedikt Doll and Florian Graf managed to defend their title, but in the individual competitions it was not enough to win a medal. In the individual he was eighth, in the sprint sixth and in the pursuit he was back to 13th after six penalties. Then he was allowed to start at the World Cup finals at Holmenkollen in Oslo . As 40th in the sprint, he won his first World Cup point and improved his performance in the pursuit race to 24th place.

As in previous seasons, Lesser mainly started in the IBU Cup in the 2011/12 season . The performances were similar to the previous year and he mostly reached the goal within the top twenty. After two victories in Forni Avoltri , Lesser was allowed to participate in the World Cup again . With an 83rd place in the individual, he was initially clearly beaten. With a 51st place in the sprint, he was then able to qualify for his second pursuit race, which he finished 29th. At the following European Championships in Osrblie , Lesser won the relay race and bronze in the individual as the final runner with Daniel Böhm, Matthias Bischl and Johannes Kühn . He was also eleventh in the sprint and seventh in the pursuit race. A little later he came back to World Cup appearances in Kontiolahti and ran in the sprint in 23rd place and in the following pursuer in 22nd place and was able to improve his best from the previous season by one or two places. After this World Cup, he started again in the IBU Cup, where he won the last race of the season after finishing eleventh in the sprint with the pursuit. Then he was given another opportunity to start at the World Cup finals, but could not qualify for the pursuit as 61st in the sprint.

First World Cup season (2012/13 season)

The 2012/13 season was Lesser's first full World Cup season. At the World Cup opener in Östersund , Lesser stood on the World Cup podium for the first time in the first race of the season. Thanks to a race with no shooting errors, he finished third in the individual. With a 14th and a 13th place in sprint and pursuit, he was able to achieve two more good results in Östersund. Until the world championships he could not reach the top ten, but, apart from one race, always stayed within the points.

The world championships in Nové Město were the first for Erik Lesser. In the sprint and pursuit he just missed the top ten with a 12th and a 14th place. With three penalty minutes it was only enough for 34th place in the individual. In the relay race he then shot two penalties in the last shooting, so that Germany crossed the finish line in third behind Norway and France and thus won bronze. In the final mass start he got through with only one penalty loop and came in fifth. At the races in Oslo, he achieved his second podium. He finished third in the mass start. With a sixth place in the sprint in Sochi , he was also able to achieve another top ten placement this season. Lesser finished the season in 16th world and reached tenth place in the sprint standings.

First Olympic Games (2013/14 season)

The Olympic season began for Lesser with a tenth place in the individual and a seventh place in the sprint. In Hochfilzen, after five penalty laps in the sprint, it was only enough to finish 72nd and thus missed the pursuit. Things went much better in Annecy . First, with Andreas Birnbacher , Arnd Peiffer and Simon Schempp, they finished second behind Russia in the season. Since the Russian Alexander Loginow was subsequently banned for doping for two years, the Russian relay team was disqualified and the German relay team was subsequently awarded the victory. Lesser finished the sprint cleanly in ninth place, after having also made no mistakes in the pursuit, he crossed the finish line second. This was his best result so far. At the beginning of 2014 he had to cancel the start in Oberhof in the sprint and thus also the pursuit, but then he finished 19th in the mass start. But in Ruhpolding and Antholz he also did not make it into the top ten.

At the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi , Erik Lesser won silver medals in the individual competition and with the German relay. On the final day he took part in the 50 km cross-country skiing and finished 42nd out of 64 starters. He was 21st in the sprint, 16th in the pursuit and 26th in the mass start. On May 8, 2014, Federal President Gauck gave him the silver laurel leaf for his medal wins .

Even after the Olympics, Lesser was no longer able to achieve the top results. By the end of the season he was in the top twenty only once and was even outside the points twice. After he had been in fourth place in the overall ranking of the World Cup, he finished the season in 27th place. In the individual disciplines he was also unable to build on the good results of the previous year. This was also due to the fact that he did not take part in the competitions on the Pokljuka.

World Pursuit Champion (2014/15 season)

Erik Lesser (sprint start in Nové Město, 2015)

The post-Olympic season began much like the previous one. Lesser He missed the podium in the individual by 3 seconds and was fourth. In the remaining races of 2014, however, he only made it into the top twenty athletes twice. In the new year things went a little better in Oberhof he was twelfth in the mass start and Antholz he was able to improve from 19th place in the sprint to sixth place in a faultless pursuit. In Nové Město, the single mixed relay was held for the first time. Together with Luise Kummer he reached fourth place. In the following years Lesser ran most of the single mixed seasons with Franziska Preuss . With an eighth place in the pursuit and a ninth place in the individual, he achieved two top ten results before the World Cup.

Erik Lesser finished fifth in the sprint race at the 2015 World Championships in Kontiolahti. In the pursuit that followed, he won the gold medal and celebrated his first ever World Cup victory. With the relay victory at the World Cup, Lesser became double world champion. In the individual it was enough with a penalty minute only for 18th place and in the mass start for 17th place. At the season finale in Khanty-Mansiysk , he did not get beyond a thirteenth place in the mass start. He finished the season tenth in the world, making it his best World Cup season. He finished seventh in the individual standings and fifth in the mass start standings. These placements were also his best so far.

Second World Cup victory (2015/16 season)

Lesser started the 2015/16 season with only two World Cup points . At the start in Östersund he was 39th in the individual. The two following races were only marginally better. In Hochfilzen, with a 42nd place in the sprint, he was initially outside of the points, but was then able to improve to 25th place in the pursuit. With a 12th place in the pursuit on the Pokljuka, he came close to the top ten for the first time. But that was enough to qualify as 27th for the mass start, which he finished 16th. The new year started with no World Cup points with a 41st place in the sprint in Ruhpolding. For the last competition in Ruhpolding, the mass start, Lesser just managed to qualify and started in 30th place. He made no mistakes and won the race 9.8 seconds ahead of Martin Fourcade. This was his second World Cup victory. After this upward outlier, Lesser continued with results beyond the top ten. In Presque Isle he was able to achieve fourth place in the sprint before the World Championships.

The World Championships in Oslo began Lesser with a 19th place in the sprint. In the pursuit, he was able to improve to seventh place and was unable to defend his previous year's title. With a penalty minute, he was also seventh in the individual. He could not defend their title in the season either, but only had to admit defeat to the Norwegian season and won silver. In the final mass start he was 14th. He finished the season with good results at the last World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk. Initially fifth in the sprint, he was able to improve to third place in the pursuit. Overall, it was enough for 14th place in the world, in the pursuit ranking he was ninth.

Tenth in the world (season 2016/17)

The 2016/17 season began for Erik Lesser and Franziska Preuss with their first podium in the single mixed relay. They finished third behind France and Austria. In the individual races in Östersund, Lesser started with a 31st place in the individual and finished fifth in the pursuit. At Pokljuka and in Nové Město he almost always came in the top twenty, he only finished one pursuit as 24. In 2017 he started with two fifth places in the sprint and pursuit in Oberhof. After he was in the lead in the mass start, he left the shooting range after the last shot as third, behind Martin Fourcade and Ole Einar Bjørndalen . Both Lesser and Schempp were able to overtake Bjørndalen on the final lap. Schempp then overtook Fourcade on the home stretch and Lesser was able to prevail against Fourcade in the photo finish. This made Lesser second in the mass start, his best result of the season so far. In Ruhpolding, however, he was unable to build on this success. In Antholz he reached eighth place in the mass start in the last race before the world championships.

This year's world championships took place in Hochfilzen. For Erik Lesser it was the first world championship without a medal. In sprint and pursuit he clearly missed this with a 37th and a 28th place. In the individual, he finished fourth, 11 seconds behind. Even with the relay, he just missed a medal after Schempp had to admit defeat to third-placed Austrian Dominik Landertinger in the final round . After three penalty loops, he finished these World Championships as 21st in the mass start.

The test competitions for the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang then took place. There he could only convince with a sixth place in the sprint. He had to skip the competitions in Kontiolahti due to illness. At the season finale in Oslo he didn't get past 14th place in the mass start. As in the 2014/15 season, Lesser finished this season as tenth in the world. He was also tenth in the pursuit ranking, eleventh in the individual ranking and 14th in the sprint ranking. In the mass start he achieved his best individual ranking with a fifth place.

Second Olympic Games (2017/18 season)

At the beginning of his second Olympic season , he was able to improve his previous year's result of the single mixed relay in Östersund by one place. Together with Vanessa Hinz he finished second behind the Austrian Simon Eder . In the sprint he also reached an individual podium with a third place. After finishing in the top ten only once in Hochfilzen and initially outside of the points in Annecy, Lesser finished third in the mass start. At the beginning of the new year he had to skip the competitions in his home town of Oberhof due to illness. He then started in Ruhpolding, but ended up in the individual with four penalty minutes in 63rd place and in the mass start it was only enough for 18th place. The last competitions before the Olympic Games in Antholz were places 15, 37 and 17 similar.

At the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, Lesser remained without a podium in the individual starts. In the sprint and pursuit he was eleventh, ninth in the individual and fourth in the mass start , 0.4 seconds behind third-placed Schempp. He also finished fourth in the mixed relay , but won the bronze medal in the men's relay . After the games, things continued successfully, seventh in the sprint and fifth in the mass start of Kontiolahti. In Oslo, however, places were added beyond the twenty in Lesser's result balance. Lesser finished the season with two fifths and one ninth place in Tyumen . In the overall ranking, it fell one place to eleventh compared to the previous year. He also lost a place in the mass start classification and came in sixth. In the sprint ranking, he improved by one place to 13th. In the individual and the pursuit ranking, however, he lost significantly.

Post-Olympic season and early end of the season (from season 2018/19)

Erik Lesser (award ceremony in Östersund, 2019)

The 2018/19 season began with little promise. At this season opener at Pokljuka, Lesser's best result was a 23rd place in the individual. In Hochfilzen he reached 17th place in the sprint. He missed the competitions in Nové Město due to back problems, which could not be completely resolved for the rest of the season. In the new year he initially started, but canceled the pursuit start in Oberhof and the competitions in Ruhpolding. In Antholz he achieved a 21st place as the best result. At the competitions in North America, things went much better. He finished eighth in a shortened individual in Canmore and fourth and fifth in the sprint and pursuit at Midway .

The World Championships then took place in Östersund. Lesser started this with eighth place in the sprint. He finished eleventh in both pursuit and individual. In the competition for the single mixed relay world championship, which was held for the first time, Lesser and Denise Herrmann finished fourth. Together with Roman Rees , Arnd Peiffer and Benedikt Doll, he was able to win silver in the relay competition. With six penalties, it was only enough for 27th place in the mass start. At the last mass start of the season he was last with the same shooting performance. Due to the many missed competitions, he finished the season only 23rd in the world. Nevertheless, he finished eighth in the individual discipline.

The following season began for Erik Lesser and Franziska Preuss in Östersund with a second place in the single mixed competition. In the sprint, however, he was only 33rd and in the individual 72. In Hochfilzen, too, he ended up with a 70th place outside the points and thus missed the pursuit, with an 82nd in the Annecy sprint he also missed the second pursuit of the year and was only scored once in the first trimester. Due to his poor performance, he started in the IBU Cup the next year . With five top ten places in six races, he was given the opportunity to qualify for the world championships again on the Pokljuka. With a 20th place in the individual, he was able to qualify for the mass start, where he was fourteenth. Due to the lack of full qualification, Lesser was not nominated for a single start at the World Championships. First he entered the IBU Cup again and was second in the pursuit race.

With these results, Lesser had worked out a relay start at the World Championships in Antholz. Together with Preuss he competed in a single mixed relay and won silver behind Norway. Then he was allowed to start in the relay and won bronze. He then wanted to start at the European Championships and then end his season to fix the health problems. For personal reasons he ended the season after the World Championships.

Lesser lives with his partner and daughter in Oberhof.

Appearances in film and television

• 2016: The big ProSieben Völkerball Championship

Awards

• Thuringia's Sportsman of the Year 2015 Sportsman of the Year: Ball des Thuringian Sports ( Memento from April 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive )

statistics

World Cup victories

Single race	Relay race
No. date place discipline 1. 0March 8 2015  Kontiolahti (WM) persecution 2. Jan. 16, 2016  Ruhpolding Mass start	No. date place discipline 1. Dec 13, 2013  Annecy - Le Grand-Bornand Season 1 2. 14 Mar 2015  Kontiolahti (WM) Season 2 3. Jan. 21, 2017  Antholz Season 3 1with Andreas Birnbacher , Arnd Peiffer and Simon Schempp 2with Daniel Böhm , Arnd Peiffer and Simon Schempp 3with Benedikt Doll , Arnd Peiffer and Simon Schempp

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	1	3	5
2nd place			1	1	14th	16
3rd place	1	1	1	2	8th	13
Top 10	7th	15th	11	8th	46	87
Scoring	18th	53	48	28	47	194
Starts	22nd	66	52	28	47	215
Status: end of season 2019/20

winter Olympics

Results at Olympic Winter Games:

winter Olympics		singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	Mixed relay
year	place
2014	Sochi	2.	21st	16.	26th	2.	-
2018	Pyeongchang	9.	11.	11.	4th	3.	4th

World championships

Results at the World Championships:

World championships		singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	Mixed relay	Single mixed relay
year	place
2013	Nové Město	34.	12.	14th	5.	3.	-
2015	Kontiolahti	18th	5.	1.	17th	1.	-
2016	Oslo	7th	19th	7th	14th	2.	-
2017	Hochfilzen	4th	37.	28.	21st	4th	-
2019	Ostersund	11.	8th.	11.	27.	2.	-	4th
2020	Antholz	-	-	-	-	3.	-	2.

Junior World Championships

Results at the Junior World Championships:

World championships		singles	sprint	persecution	Season
year	place
2008	Ruhpolding	7th	16.	8th.	-
2009	Canmore	3.	11.	11.	1.

IBU Cup victories

date	place	discipline
March 11, 2009	Ridanna	singles
March 13, 2009	Ridanna	sprint
March 14, 2009	Ridanna	persecution
December 13, 2009	Ridanna	sprint
January 8, 2011	Nove Mesto	singles
February 5, 2011	Osrblie	singles
February 6, 2011	Osrblie	sprint
January 7, 2012	Forni Avoltri	singles
January 8, 2012	Forni Avoltri	sprint
March 11, 2012	Altenberg	persecution

Web links

Commons : Erik Lesser  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Erik Lesser in the database of the IBU (English)
• Erik Lesser in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Erik Lesser at biathlon.xc-ski.de ( from the web archive )
• Erik Lesser's website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biathlon: IBU continues to withdraw Loginow and Co. handelsblatt.com July 10, 2015 ( Memento of July 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Awarding of the silver bay leaf. The Federal President , May 5, 2014, accessed on March 15, 2020 . 
3. ↑ BMW IBU WORLD CUP BIATHLON - 2015/2016 POKLJUKA MEN 15 KM MASS START. IBU, December 20, 2015, accessed on February 23, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Biathlon World Cup Erik Lesser celebrates sensational victory in Ruhpolding. t-online.de, January 17, 2016, accessed on February 23, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Schempp and Lesser celebrate a double victory. spiegel.de, January 8, 2017, accessed on February 23, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Kontiolahti: Lesser falls ill. sport1.de, March 10, 2017, accessed on February 23, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Schempp and Lesser hope for the podium at the home world cup. br.de, January 10, 2018, accessed on February 23, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Time out at an inopportune time - Lesser missed the World Cup in Nove Mesto. Thüringer Allgemeine, December 20, 2018, accessed on February 23, 2020 . 
9. ↑ Another chance for Erik Lesser. sportschau.de, January 21, 2020, accessed on February 23, 2020 . 
10. ↑ Private reasons: Lesser ends season. sport1.de, February 22, 2020, accessed on February 23, 2020 .