Germany’s Denise Herrmann sealed the gold medal at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games Monday night. Her low number of misses at the range gave her the victory in the women’s biathlon 15km individual at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre. France’s Anais Chevalier-Bouchet took the silver and Norway’s Marte Olsbu Roeiseland, who started first held on for the bronze.
The highest-ranked biathletes based on the world cup point standings went out in 30-second intervals. Roeiseland was first to take off on the 3km course, with defending Olympic champion Hanna Oeberg taking off in the 17th position. Roeiseland came into the first shoot and missed one that added a minute to her time, but remained in front of the others. Oeberg was perfect in the prone position, giving her a chance to catch up with the leaders.
Roeiseland came in for her second shoot and was out quickly with a perfect run of shots during the stand position. Her lead was 41 seconds ahead of Herrmann, who also shot perfectly. Hanna’s sister Elvira got into the action on the first shoot and went perfectly to move into the main pack.
The defending gold medalist was in for the standing position and managed to miss two that smashed her chance to make up serious time. Roeiseland made the midway point and went perfectly on the third shoot to lead after 27 minutes elapsed on her time. Italy’s Dorothea Wierer moved within reach of the Norwegian, going perfect in the third visit to the range to be 14 seconds back.
Chevalier-Bouchet was the best so far after three shoots, who didn’t miss a single target in three visits. She moved into a challenging time that put her in the running for a medal. Wierer came into her last shoot and missed two that add too much penalized time to her overall. The Oeberg sisters took themselves out of contention as they each had a tough day at the range.
In her final visit, Chevalier-Bouchet missed one, putting her very close to Herrmann, who did just that. Roeiseland came to the finish line in 44 minutes that stood as the time to beat. Herrmann came to the finish line and had a 20-second window, doing so with a 15-second lead. Chevalier-Bouchet came in almost 10 seconds within Herrmann’s time for second place.
Her teammate Vanessa Voigt neared the finish line and had a chance to get on the medal podium. Herrmann screamed at her to pick up the pace, but it wasn’t enough for the 24-year-old, who missed bronze by a second. The wait was on for the leaders, who had to wait for all 89 athletes to be through with the last shot to determine their fates. It came after 80 minutes with Herrmann winning gold, Chevalier-Bouchet silver, and Roeiseland the bronze.
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