For the first time in the men’s 12.5km pursuit, France’s Martin Fourcade defended his 2014 gold medal win at the Alpensia Biathlon Centre at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Monday night. He became the first to ever pull off a repeat of the event with Sebastian Samuelsson winning silver and German Benedikt Doll winning the bronze.
Arnd Peiffer’s win Sunday has him under pressure to achieve big results for his country as Germany has gone three for three in the sport so far. Fourcade would try to beat him as he took the event in Sochi hoping to recover from his terrible finish the other day and get another medal under his belt. The wind picked up again for the men’s 12.5km pursuit as they would complete five laps of 2.5 kilometers each with four stops to shoot.
At the first visit to the range, Fourcade rushed to the range quickly getting in the top three but missed one. Peiffer got clean but saw Austria’s Julian Eberhard getting ahead of him. Doll went five for five as well sitting 12 seconds back of Peiffer who was eight tenths behind of the Austrian to begin the second lap. The Norwegian’s did better at the range but were overall behind the main leaders.
In the second stop at the range, there remained many competitors shooting together with Peiffer clear while Eberhard missed one. He fell back with German teammate Erik Lesser taking second and Norway’s Tarjei Boe running third. Fourcade went clean to get him back into the hunt sitting sixth going into the second circuit.
At the 6.25km mark, Germany ran 1-2 with Samuelsson in third with Lesser behind him. Fourcade fell back two spots but was still within reach of many. The top four had gone perfectly through two rounds of shooting with two more to go that would add further pressure to stay perfect.
Going into the third lap was Fourcade who went clean while Peiffer missed one to lose the lead for the first time. Cheers from the crowd for the Frenchman were high as he gained a 20-second gap going into the third. The German had Fourcade in sight going up the hill but lost control of behind the head of the pack at the 8.4 km mark. The lead for the defending champion was 31 seconds and then 40 when the pack reached the next checkpoint.
With Fourcade taking his time on the range and having a lot of time alone there gave him the advantage to keep his focus on the standing portion of the competition. It was there he went five for five pumping his fist to the fan and off with a 36-second advantage with Doll taking second and Samuelsson third. Doll cut off five seconds but it was too much to overcome the ground that the 29-year-old opened up to come into the finish line at 32:51.7 winning gold by 12 seconds. His victory run had him skiing with the French Tricolore making him a legend with Norway’s Ole Einar Bjorndalen
Samuelsson overtook Doll at the homestretch putting all his effort to finish ahead of the 2017 world champion who finished third 3.1 seconds back. Peiffer’s two misses on the last range stop saw him complete the race in eighth with the pressure being too much for him. While Germany failed to keep their winning streak alive at the Olympics, France now had their mark made as a powerhouse of the sport with more events to compete in.
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