Ishmouratova Is Surprise Biathlon Winner

Russia nearly swept the medals in the women’s 15-kilometer individual biathlon Monday at Cesana, Italy, after the favored Germans missed crucial shots at the end.

Svetlana Ishmouratova of Russia capitalized on mistakes by all the favorites, winning in a time of 49 minutes, 24.1 seconds. Teammate Olga Pyleva was second.

“I consider myself very lucky today,” Ishmouratova said.

A strong finish by Germany’s Martina Glagow bumped Albina Akhatova of Russia to fourth place.

Ishmouratova’s time included a one-minute penalty for her one missed target in 20 shots. Pyleva also missed just one shot but finished 45.5 seconds behind Ishmouratova.

Glagow’s teammates were expected to dominate and Andrea Henkel was in line to defend the gold medal she won in 2002 until she missed two targets on her final shoot.

“I’m very disappointed,” Henkel said. “I don’t know why I missed two shots in the last shooting. It wasn’t the wind that affected me. It was my head that wasn’t working. This is an Olympic race and you can’t make such mistakes.”

Norway’s Liv Grete Poiree, another medal hopeful, was leading the race and also on pace for a clean shoot until she made three mistakes on her final stop at the shooting range.

“I’m angry, I’m sorry, I’ll keep trying,” she said.

World Cup leader Kati Wilhelm and Uschi Disl lost focus on one of their shoots, missing three times and ending their chances of a medal.

For Wilhelm, it wasn’t the wind gusts that cost her a medal but a moment of forgetfulness.

“I altered the sights for the second shooting because of the wind and forgot to change them again before the third shooting,” Wilhelm said after all three of her misses went left.

Americans Rachel Steer, Tracy Barnes, Sarah Konrad and Lanny Barnes were 42nd, 58th, 63rd and 65th, respectively, in the field of 82.

Tracy Barnes missed just one of her 20 shots, resulting in a one-minute penalty, but she had trouble navigating the course.

The Americans were hoping for a top-20 finish from Steer.

CURLING

England Wins Opener Against Denmark

Defending women’s champion England opened with a 3-2 victory when Dorthe Holm slid Denmark’s last stone through an open target area, trying to curl around a guard stone so British skip Rhona Martin wouldn’t just knock her away on the next throw. In a matchup of two medal favorites, Sweden beat Canada, 7-5. Also, Switzerland beat Italy, 11-4.

On the men’s side, Sweden is 2-0 after beating New Zealand, 6-3, and Italy, 7-5. The Italians also lost to Britain, 7-5. Canada beat Germany, 10-5, and Britain is 2-0 and dropped New Zealand to 0-2 with a 10-5 win.