Wonderful shooting from Germany’s Laura
Dahlmeier earned her the gold in the women’s 7.5Km sprint Biathlon
at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter
Olympics. The 22 year old didn’t miss a single shot at the Alpensia
Biathlon Centre finishing 24.2 seconds ahead of silver medalist Marte
Olsbu of Norway and Veronika
Vitkova of the Czech Republic for the bronze.
Two time defending Olympic champion Anastasia Kuzmina sat
way behind in the start while Austria’s Lisa Theresa Hauser had the pole
position since finishing 25th in 2014. Darya Domracheva who won a couple of
medals in Sochi still had a chance to make things happen in the sprint, but had
new competitors looking to make a name for themselves. American Susan Dunklee
earned a sixth-place start hoping to make her mark made. A total of 87 women
competed in the event each starting one after the other.
Hauser took off with a 30 second interval before the
remainder of the leaders got their own sprint. After the first kilometer,
Hauser had 5.8 seconds on Sweden’s Hanna Oeberg giving her plenty of room while
she closed in on completing the first of three 2.5km laps. The wind picked up
heavily which no doubt played a role in their skiing and shooting. The leader
had a bad start in the prone position missing three up which sent her to the
penalty roundabout to complete three laps for each miss.
Germany’s Denise Herrmann and Oeberg got through clean to
move into the second lap first and second. Dunklee missed just once while
Switzerland’s Selina Gasparin had it worse off missing three. Domracheva missed
just one that would cost her time to catch up on the main group.
Kuzmina came out to start a lap down on the leaders while Herrmann
came back into the shooting range missing twice while in the standing position.
Oeberg lead after the second shooting range with Hauser right behind her and
Herrmann 35 seconds back. Dunklee missed four in the standing position but
somehow remained in sixth place after the second round of shooting. Domracheva
missed one on her second round taking her out of the running for a medal.
The best of the night went to Dahlmeier who missed not one
shot in both the prone and the standing positions. Tatiana Amikova of the
United Team also went clean but finished 1:18 behind. Austrian Dunja Zdouc also
went clear throughout the competition but finished 48th.
At the end of it all, Oeberg was first to come across the
finish line at 21:32 followed by Herrmann at 22:25.8. The standings changed up
significantly when many came in to finish the event as Herrmann’s time was
being topped by many who came in to complete the event. After Kuzmina’s solid 4
of 5 in the stand position, she finished things 53.9 seconds back that was not
good enough to win a third consecutive medal. Dunklee finished way out of
placing high with a time of 24:13.1 after missing five targets.
In front was Dahlmeier who posted a time of 21:06.2 which
was a good spot to be in first but there were many still to come in. As nearly
half the competitors crossed the finish line, Dahlmeier’s time continued to
hold strong having come in 24.2 seconds faster than current second place Marte
Olsbu of Norway who missed just one target overall. Czech biathlete Marketa Davidova
had one miss but finished 57.1 seconds back to sit in 14th. All the
competitors completed the shooting rounds with only 15 left to come in. When it
was all said and done Dahlmeier remained in the first with Olsbu winning silver
and Vitkova taking home the bronze.
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