Bjoerndalen upsets top guns to match medals record

Reuters/Rosa Khutor

After almost two years without an individual win, Ole Einar  Bjoerndalen stamped his authority on the Olympics yesterday, claiming a record-equalling 12th medal by winning the biathlon sprint.

After a 10km effort punctuated with two shooting sessions, the 40-year-old Norwegian matched compatriot Bjorn Daehlie’s Winter Games mark. 

Bjoerndalen, who now has seven gold medals to his name, trails eight-times Olympic cross-country skiing champion Daehlie on only ‘gold difference’.

“I did everything the way I should today,” Bjoerndalen, whose previous individual victory came in a pursuit on Feb 12, 2012, told Norway’s TV2.

“It was a perfectly paced race. I did things the way I know best.”

He missed one of 10 targets but shot fast and skied flawlessly to beat Austrian Dominik Landertinger, who took silver, by 1.3 seconds. Bronze medallist Jaroslav Soukup of the Czech Republic finished 5.7 seconds off the pace.

Pre-race favourites Martin Fourcade of France and Norwegian Emil Hegle Svendsen were sixth and ninth respectively.

Russian Anton Shipulin ended a frustrating fourth, 0.7 seconds from the podium as the host nation were left still waiting for their first medal of the Games.

It quickly appeared that Bjoerndalen was back to his awe-inspiring best in the Laura Complex’s crepuscular scenery.

A perfect prone shooting session put him in a good position and despite a mistake in the standing shooting, Bjoerndalen used perfectly-prepared skis to make up for lost time.

Overall World Cup leader Fourcade underlined the importance of the skis.

“There are a lot of things to analyse,” he told reporters.  “The speed on the skis, for example. The Norwegians skidded better.”

It was Bjoerndalen’s third sprint Olympic title after his 1998 and 2002 triumphs.