[citation needed] After a poor 24th in the sprint, he ran away with the mass start, hitting all 20 targets and finishing 24.3 seconds ahead of his nearest challenger.

After finishing 4th in the sprint, he took win number 3 in the mass start with a penalty lap on shoot 3 proving to be a mere bump on the road to victory as he beat Anton Shipulin and Martin Fourcade by 0.1 and 0.3 seconds respectively.

World cup 7 took Birnbacher back to the site of his maiden win at the end of last year: Oslo Hollmenkollen.

After reasonable[clarification needed] sprint and pursuit performances Birnbacher, finished second in the mass start cleaning all 20 targets but not having the skiing speed of race winner Svendsen.

Then any hopes of Birnbacher taking the overall crystal globe ended when the German coaches decided to rest him for Kontiolathi Finland so he could be prepared for the upcoming world championships.

In the mixed relay, Birnbacher teamed up with Andrea Henkel, Magdalena Neuner and Arnd Peiffer; at the time the four of them combined had won 14 races.