For Quentin Fillon Maillet, the race began far from ideally — one miss on each of the first two prone stages. Even though several rivals struggled in parallel, the Frenchman still found himself 38 seconds behind the lead.
Meanwhile, the main battle was unfolding between Johan-Olav Botn and Sebastian Samuelsson — not for the victory, but for second place. The two arrived at the final shooting stage with a 10-second advantage over the chasing group, but both missed a target.
From the pack behind them, only Quentin Fillon Maillet managed to shoot clean. Uldal, Perrot, Christiansen and Giacomel all squandered their winning chances and headed for the penalty loop.
Samuelsson eventually won the duel against Botn, but catching the Frenchman was already out of reach.
Botn keeps the yellow bib.
