Head coach of women’s German national team shared his impressions of the Olympic season and staying in Khanty-Mansiysk.

     - The Olympic season is coming to an end. In the World Cup women's team of Germany appears perfectly, but at the Olympics in Vancouver, only Magdalena Neuner has achieved success. What will you say about the season in general, concerning your team?

      - We are very pleased with the results in common. During the Olympic season Magdalena Neuner was really good but at the World Cup and she and Simone Hauswald and other athletes performed well. I repeat again what we are satisfied with the season.

      - Your athletes compete to each other on the course and in the classification of different nominations of the World Cup. How did it influence to the atmosphere in the team?

     - We are one team in common: before start and after finish. And everything, what is going on during the race – is the competition where every athlete tries to do his best. There is no negative in the relationships of our team generally.

     - It is not a secret that there will be a change of generations after this season in your team, and several athletes are going to finish their career. Is there a reserve in the team? Don’t you have some anxiety because of this situation?

     - Of course it is very hard to find the athletes who have such success like these ones but we have Sabrina Buchholz, for example. Generally I think that we need one year or two for the national team to be at the present level. The difficulty is that the prizes are always expect from German team. And here, in Khanty-Mansyisk our young biathletes performed rather well, so there is a hope.

      - At the present World Cup Final almost all your athletes in individual races are fighting for the different globes between each other. Is the mass relay important for them in this case, which will finish the program of competitions and will go to the offset of the World Cup?

     - Everything will depend on the individual races, the four strongest athletes will participate in mass relay.

     - You are coming to Khanty-Mansiyisk not for the first time. How can you evaluate the reconstruction of the Stadium being the representative of the team?

     - First of all I will note that the organization of the competitions is great in common, starting with the flight from Oslo. Usually we are waiting for some hours for all the procedures to be done but here there has not been such problem. The changes on the Stadium are good, everything became smaller, the spectators could see everything at once, and my impressions are very good.

     - Don’t you fill yourself like a Siberian man because of coming here so often?

      - We like here very much but unfortunately don’t manage to see a lot. We are on the Stadium most of the time and sometimes go to the city. Hospitality of people here produces a tremendous impression, and they are open-minded.

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