Hanna
Oeberg had the run of her life that was considered more than golden at the
Alpensia Biathlon Centre. The 22 year old Swede went perfect at the shooting
range and skied fast enough to win the women’s 15
kilometer individual biathlon at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Anastasiya
Kuzmina of Slovakia got the silver and Germany’s Laura
Dahlmeier winning the bronze.
All three of the medalist from Sochi were back in
competition with the hope of repeating or bettering their results. Darya Domracheva
of Belarus looked for a second straight gold with Switzerland’s Selina Gasparin
also looking to come back and win a bigger medal as was the thought of
Domracheva’s teammate Nadezhda Skardino who started 32nd. With the weather
conditions nearly perfect the competitors would have one thing easy to complete
four laps of 3.75 kilometers with intervals of 30 seconds for each biathlete.
As the race got underway, Kuzmina set the bar with a clean
first stop at the shooting range doing well in the first of two prone positions.
She opened up a 1:16 lead on the pack and nearly made it four minutes when she
came into the second round of shooting. It was there that she let the big
margin get away from her missing the middle target to hit the lap track once. Domracheva
made her way to the range for the first time where she adjusted her sights
before going five for five. Oeberg took the time lead away from Kuzmina
finishing 12 seconds fast at the halfway point of the race.
Domracheva remained perfect as well on the standing point of
the shooting range that gave her a small edge on Oeberg for the overall time.
Skardino followed suit on her countrywoman going clean for a second time at the
range that gave the indication of her willingness to return to the medal
podium.
Kuzmina was back for the third of four where returning to
prone would determine if it was her best point with six minutes between here
and Marte Olsbu of Norway. She ended up missing one again that came just wide
of hitting the target. Domracheva had a miss for her first time in the third
round that would put a damper on how the remainder of the race went for her. Skardino
was fortunate to remain flawless but she found herself down nearly a minute of
the lead after three laps.
In her final shoot, Kuzmina went perfect in the standing
position taking her time to breathe and get the last target covered. She came
in with a time of 41:31.9 that was four minutes faster than the second athlete
to have started the race. Olsbu had a very tough time in the final two visits
to the range missing five that took her out of the running for anything. Oeberg
was the first to go clean in the competition gaining 35 seconds on Kuzmina’s
time. When she completed the final lap, the Swede charged into the homestretch
giving herself 24.7 seconds of a gap to lead.
Domracheva had a lot riding on her last visit to the range
and missed three shots that ended her chance to repeat as a medalist. Skardino
suffered a miss in her last round of shooting sitting two minutes down and her
hopes of a medal dwindling. The same went for Gasparin who had four misses in
her last two visits to the range that put her out of reach to win a medal. Germany
had its best chance to win more medals as both Dahlmeier and teammate Franziska
Preuss remained in the running to do so.
As the final strong competitors crossed the finish line it
became assured that Oeberg would win the gold medal. Kuzmina’s time seemed to
hold everyone including Dahlmeier who finished 17 seconds behind her. It was
her third career silver medal and fifth of the games so far. With the individual
achievements over and done with, it would be up to the best of the teams to
bring home more medals as the sport went on.
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