By Philip O’Connor
ANTERSELVA, Italy, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Johannes Dale-Skjevdal of Norway hit a perfect 20 for 20 on the shooting range for the first time in his career to storm to victory in the men’s biathlon 15-km mass start on Friday and give Norway a record for most golds at a Winter Games.
Norway’s tally of 17 gold medals so far at Milano-Cortina surpasses their own previous record for a single nation of 16 at Beijing 2022.
Dale-Skjevdal’s compatriot Sturla Holm Laegreid took the silver, 10.5 seconds behind.
Quentin Fillon Maillet of France stormed past Germany’s Philipp Horn on the last lap to secure bronze and become his nation’s most successful Olympian of all time with nine medals.
Dale-Skjevdal was the only biathlete in the 30-man field not to miss a shot on the day, and he picked the perfect time to hit all 20 shots in a race for the first time.
“There’s a lot of feelings. Olympic champion. Damn, it’s sick, it’s a dream … I have no words,” the hugely talented but often erratic 28-year-old told Norwegian TV.
The 30 biathletes faced five laps of the 3-km course, shooting twice from the prone position (on their stomach) and twice standing, with each miss costing them a trip around the 150-metre penalty loop.
Emilien Jacquelin of France and Tommaso Giacomel of Italy made the early running, but both fell away before the third shoot, with Giacomel quitting the race entirely after experiencing a pain in his side.
NORWEGIAN STRANGLEHOLD
Heavy snowfall on Thursday and an unpredictable wind made conditions challenging, but the Norwegians exerted all of their experience to gradually take a stranglehold on the race.
The blustery wind picked up considerably and caused chaos at the third shoot, but Dale-Skjevdal fired another series of perfect shots to take a lead over Laegreid, and Horn came out in third with Fillon Maillet hot on his heels.
Dale-Skjevdal’s fourth series of five hits secured the gold and, with Laegreid comfortably in the silver medal position, it came down to the battle for bronze.
Nestled in fourth spot, Fillon Maillet made his move with 1.2 km left, and though Horn did his best to answer the surge, the Frenchman burst away from him into a long, curving downhill stretch. By the bottom of it, the bronze was his.
“It’s not as good as gold, but I needed it in my collection. It’s been a magnificent Olympics. It’s not my best race – in terms of skiing, it’s one of my best races, not in shooting,” Fillon Maillet told French TV.
“It’s still a medal, a ninth medal, my fourth at these Olympics. It’s incredible.”
After some underwhelming performances so far this season, second-placed Laegreid grabbed his fifth medal of the Games as he turned his fortunes around. Though none of them were gold, he was still content.
“I am really happy with my performance here. I mean, coming into the Olympics, no podiums in the season, and really only getting told that the individual was my race, and then to be here now with five medals, that’s a gold medal in itself,” he told Reuters.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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