Norwegian Aims for Hat Trick of Gold Medals

The biathlon has consistently humbled the world’s best competitors, yet Ole Einar Bjoerndalen keeps making the maddening sport look deceptively easy.

Calmly nailing all 10 of his targets, the Norwegian coasted to the gold medal in the 10-kilometer sprint Wednesday, winning his second gold of the Olympics and becoming the first biathlete to win three in a career

“There’s not many like this race you have in your life,” he said.

Bjoerndalen, who won Monday’s 20k race by making 18 of 20 shots, finished in 24 minutes, 51.3 seconds--28.9 seconds ahead of Germany’s Sven Fischer, who missed once. Austria’s Wolfgang Perner was a surprising bronze winner, shooting cleanly to finish 53.1 seconds back.

Bjoerndalen won the same event in Nagano four years ago and has an excellent chance of becoming the first person to win three biathlon golds in the same Olympics. The combined pursuit, which makes its debut Saturday, is a 12.5k that incorporates Wednesday’s 10k results. So Bjoerndalen will have a 28.9-second head start on Fischer.

“For me, it’s not important if I make one more gold or one less,” Bjoerndalen said. “For me, it’s more important to make every time that I race a perfect race, and if I’m good enough to win, I win. But if some other guy is better than me that day, I will be satisfied.”

In the women’s 7.5k sprint, Germany’s Kati Wilhelm used a similarly flawless shooting performance to win her first gold. In a mild upset, she finished in 20:41.4, more than 36 seconds ahead of teammate Uschi Disl. Sweden’s Magdalena Forsberg, the sport’s dominant woman for the past five years, had to settle for her second bronze in three days.

“It was wonderful to shoot without any mistakes in such a great competition, and I’m very happy about that,” said Wilhelm, who won the 2001 world title but had not been consistent with her .22-caliber rifle leading up to the games. During a World Cup sprint in Austria on Dec. 6, she missed four of 10 shots.

Disl, who won the silver for the second straight time in this event, could have made Wednesday’s race a lot closer if she hadn’t missed her last target, forcing her to circle the penalty loop before entering the final lap.

Disl remains the most decorated woman in biathlon history, with seven medals. She has five individual medals, but no gold.

Forsberg needed a furious finish to get on the medals podium. “I thought the chance of a medal was gone when I missed a shot there,” Forsberg said.

Germany has won both women’s biathlon golds at Soldier Hollow. Andrea Henkel, who won Monday’s 15k race, slumped to 25th on Wednesday, taking herself out of contention with a miss at the first station.

The Americans struggled, with Kara Salmela finishing 49th, Andrea Nahrgang 50th and Rachel Steer 60th.

Jeremy Teela, a surprising 14th on Monday, was the top American male, taking 20th. The best U.S. finish ever in the event was 19th, by Lyle Nelson in 1980. Jay Hakkinen was 26th, and Lawton Redman 54th.

Bjoerndalen was exceptional, but his rivals made it easier on him. Frenchman Raphael Poiree was the fastest skier after the first shooting stage but missed two shots in the final round, falling to ninth.

Frode Andresen, who finished second behind his countryman Bjoerndalen in 1998, also missed twice on the final shoot and wound up eighth. And Russian Pavel Rostovtsev was perfect through nine shots but missed on his final attempt.