Magdalena Neuner

Magdalena Neuner (born February 9, 1987 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen) is a German biathlete. She is the youngest triple-World Champion in biathlon ever.

Neuner also won two events at the Holmenkollen biathlon event in 2007 (10 km pursuit, 12.5 km mass start).

Career

Despite her young age Magdalena Neuner is considered to be one of the fastest female biathletes in the world due to her strength (relative to her lightweight frame), excellent skiing technique and ability to completely exhaust herself, frequently posting the best lap time of all competitors and thus able to compensate for significantly more shooting errors than her fellows. Her shooting ability in competitions has steadily improved and is solid in the prone position (ca. 85% accuracy in the 2007/08 season according to IBU world cup statistics), however She still tends to be volatile and commit a high amount of errors in the standing position (ca. 60% accuracy), often at the expense of even better results.

World Cup

In the 2006/07 season She finished fourth in the women's Biathlon World Cup with a total score of 720 points after 27 competitions, behind fellow German biathletes Andrea Henkel and Kati Wilhelm and Swedish Anna Carin Olofsson.

As of March 6, 2008, Magdalena Neuner has won a total of 11 individual World Cup events as well as 5 in relays: 5 in the 7.5 km sprint, 3 in the 10 km pursuit and 3 in the 12.5 km mass start. She celebrated her tenth win at the first women's World Cup race ever held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and is the youngest athlete ever to reach that mark.

To date the only discipline in which She has never succeeded to place among the top 3 is the 15 km individual race (the oldest biathlon event). This discipline requires four shootings (like the mass start and pursuit) yet for each missed target 60 seconds of penalty time is added automatically instead of e.g. having to run a shorter penalty loop. Because this works to her disadvantage (see shooting accuracy) it was a main reason Neuner hasn't been selected to compete in the indvidual races at her first two senior World Championships by her coaches.

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