Benedikt Doll says goodbye to competitive sports.
Foto: imago/Steffen Proessdorf
At the beginning of the week, on the flight from the World Cup in Soldier Hollow to Canmore, Benedikt Doll had déjà vu. »I always get the feeling from Americans that they don’t make a decision because they’re afraid of making mistakes. That’s how it was at the airport,” says the biathlete from the Black Forest. “Nobody there really knew who had to do what.”
Doll himself, on the other hand, basically knew before the season was now coming to an end what he wanted to do in mid-March: stow his skis and rifle in the storage room and say goodbye to the big biathlon stage. He waited over the winter to see whether he would perhaps get the urge for another season again. She didn’t grab him, so it’s over now.
After the complicated departure from the USA, the reception for Doll and the German biathlon team in Canada was much more pleasant. “The entry there went perfectly,” reports the 33-year-old, who after twelve World Cup winters in Canmore will now give his farewell performance in three acts: It starts this Friday with the sprint, followed by the pursuit race and the mass start until Sunday .
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The ski hunter, who was born in Titisee-Neustadt, will not feel melancholy after his last slide across the finish line. “I’m at peace with my decision, I don’t mourn the sport,” emphasizes Doll, whose head already has so many new ideas floating around that he can rule one thing out: “I see the fact that I’m now falling into a mental hole as the maximum unlikely.”
As a busy organizer – for example of the afternoon coffee klatch with cake – he will be missed by Germany’s biathletes in the future. And Doll leaves a big gap, especially in the sporting area. After Simon Schempp (2021), Arnd Peiffer (2021) and Erik Lesser (2022), he is the last of the golden generation to disembark, whose members all became world champions in an individual race over the course of their careers.
Doll experienced the highlight of his career at the 2017 title fights. In the Hochfilzen sprint, the then dominator of the industry, France’s Martin Fourcade, had to settle for third place after two shooting errors. Behind silver man Johannes Thingnes Bö, who shot just as flawlessly as Doll. Before the final loop over 2.5 kilometers, the Norwegian subscription winner from previous years was still nine seconds ahead of the German. But the strong running Doll, once nicknamed “Rennsemmel” by his teammates and who had not yet won a single World Cup victory, ended up just 0.7 seconds ahead of Bö.
“The World Cup title stands out, that was the perfect race,” enthuses the man from SZ Breitnau, who developed an extra dose of ambition six and a half years after the triumph in Hochfilzen. “I want to make this season the best one I’ve had so far,” he explained in an interview with “nd” at the start of the winter. That didn’t quite work, even though he had a new rifle specially built for him by German weapons master Sandro Brislinger in Oberhof last summer.
The holder of six World Cup and two Olympic medals will no longer be able to achieve his previous top ranking of fourth place in the overall World Cup from last year. But in eighth place, Doll is currently once again the most successful runner in the German Ski Association. He also won the bronze medal in the long individual over 20 kilometers at his last World Championships in Nove Mesto in February.
Doll, who now wants to intensively support his wife Miriam in raising their one-and-a-half-year-old son, has a clear picture of his professional future. “Trainer in the professional sector – that’s not what I’m drawn to, I don’t feel like it,” says the amateur chef (favorite dish: saddle of venison with spaetzle, red cabbage and chestnuts). On the other hand, he can imagine volunteering to train children or occasionally work as a TV expert. It is also clear that the industrial engineer with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and sales is headed back to university.
In the fall he will begin studying sustainable energy systems in Offenburg. »I want to make a contribution to the energy transition. That’s a dream, a wish of mine,” emphasizes Benedikt Doll – who is also thinking of a kind of compensation for his many trips in the World Cup circuit. “Maybe,” he thinks, “I can be my personal CO2-Improve my balance sheet, which isn’t so good for me because of sport.” With fewer trips, he will have to deal with inactive immigration officials less often in the future.
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