World Team Challenge 2008
The 7th World Team Challenge 2008 (officially: VELTINS-Biathlon-WTC 08 ) was a biathlon competition that took place on December 27, 2008 in the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen .
Last year's winning team with Dmitri Yaroshenko and Yekaterina Jurjewa could not successfully defend its victory from the previous year and finished the race in third place. It was won by the Ukrainian team Andrij Derysemlja and Oxana Chwostenko .
Attendees
A total of 10 teams with participants from seven nations started. The downsizing of the field was at the expense of the additional German teams, while the international field remained largely unchanged.
For the first time in the history of the event, Christoph Sumann and Martina Beck started a team with starters from two nations. The first German-Austrian mixed ended the race in second place and had to admit defeat to the winners with just 14.6 seconds, the smallest gap in the history of the event between the winner and the runner-up. Sumann's participation was also the debut for Austria in the World Team Challenge. The USA was also there for the first time.
Results
| space | Surname | country | Time (min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andrij Derysemlja and Oxana Chwostenko |
 Ukraine
|
32: 21.6 |
| 2 | Christoph Sumann and Martina Beck |
 Austria Germany
|
+0: 14.6 |
| 3 | Dmitri Yaroshenko and Yekaterina Yuryeva |
 Russia
|
+0: 32.8 |
| 4th | Michael Rösch and Kati Wilhelm |
Germany
|
+0: 57.0 |
| 5 | Rune Brattsveen and Tora Berger |
 Norway
|
+1: 44.0 |
| 6th | Alexander Wolf and Andrea Henkel |
Germany
|
+1: 58.8 |
| 7th | Michael Greis and Kathrin Hitzer |
Germany
|
+2: 10.9 |
| 8th | Vincent Defrasne and Sylvie Becaert |
 France
|
+2: 40.2 |
| 9 | Jay Hakkinen and Lanny Barnes |
 United States
|
lapped |
| 10 | Emil Hegle Svendsen and Solveig Rogstad |
Norway
|
lapped |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ WTC Hall of Fame ( Memento from December 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (biathlon-aufschalke.de, accessed on December 31, 2012)