Sweden completed something they have never been able to do in the men’s 4x7km biathlon Friday night at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. A huge ending to the shooting range at the Alpensia Biathlon Centre gave them the gold medal by a huge margin over Norway who took silver and Germany winning bronze despite missing so many as a team.
The final race of the event had the Russians unable to defend their title having no one qualified to help them repeat despite the circumstances. Half the teams from Germany and Austria was back to try their best in the four-leg race consisting of three circuits spanning 2.5 kilometers before two shooting stops.
Norway, France and Sweden got the race started being on the front row with Germany, Italy and Switzerland right behind them to compete up the first hill. Canada surprisingly took the lead ahead of France with Norway and Germany rounding out the top four before coming into the range. With the weather a little steady, the biathletes came into the range with good focus that led to Germany’s Erik Lesser to finish first with Canada right behind them. Norway and France took a penalty or two but it was the Norwegians who came back to get into fourth just under five seconds back.
Germany got back to the lead with Slovakia finishing clean along with Ukraine who skied into the third lap in second and fourth with Norway in between them. France fell away back along with Italy while Sweden managed to stay in the top five. They came to the exchange 19 seconds ahead of Slovakia to get a shot at widening the gap further with Benedikt Doll taking the leg.
He came to the first round of shooting clean but then faltered in the second missing three times losing all their time ahead. They watched as the Czech Republic took over with Austria and Sweden running first, second and third. The three came to the halfway point to make the tag with Germany 15 seconds behind the leaders. Martin Fourcade was on the course hoping to get a lot of time made up with his skills at the shooting range.
He could not on the first one as he missed one while the Czech Republic missed one as well but got into first with Norway going perfect and Austria in third. The Norwegians led them back into the sixth shoot where they did well missing none with Sweden on their tail. Germany was nearly 14 seconds back with the final exchange coming into play.
Norway and Sweden led the way and stayed that way coming into the seventh shoot where accuracy was impertinent to finish perfectly. They both went five for five with the gap between them less than two seconds. Germany missed three times that put them back over a minute in third. The last shoot was the turning of the tide as the two Scandinavians returned to see Sweden miss once while Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway missed too many. He took his country out of running for gold with Germany a mess once again missing twice.
While they still managed to come out in third, they were down two minutes on the lead looking solid to finish the race with a bronze medal. The race for Sweden was a victory lap for them as they skied quick to stay well ahead of Norway to cross the finish line in 1:15:16.5 with Norway 55 seconds back and Germany in two minutes and seven seconds later.
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