Glagow adds final touch

Sunday was 26-year-old Glagow's sixth career World Cup win and her first this season. One of the German women were favourite to win 12.5-kilometre race, but bets were on a victory from Wilhelm, Apel, or Uschi Disl. And predictions remained correct throughout the race until the final metres when Glagow sprinted to beat Russia's Pyleva and Apel.

Apel went ahead after the second shoot when leaders Xianying Liu, Sandrine Bailly, and Liv Grete Poiree each missed a shot. Pyleva was hot on her heels with Glagow trailing by four seconds.

The situation turned in favour of Glagow when Apel missed a target on the first standing shoot. Pyleva extended her clean scorecard along with Glagow while Apel came out of the range trailing by 16 seconds.

Her strong skiing skills helped her catch Glagow, but the energy she spent left her without the additional resources that would be needed in the final metres. Before the final shoot, she reduced the gap to six seconds and cleared all five targets to catch Glagow and Pyleva who both hit 20 out of 20 targets for the day.

Glagow attacked first in the final 500 metres while Apel was unable to respond and watched as Pyleva and her team-mate duked it out in front. Glagow, pushed to her limits by thousands of German supporters finished ahead and wrapped up a positive weekend for the German women after Wilhelm's win in the 7.5km sprint on Saturday.