France continued to be at the top of the podium in the men’s biathlon 20km individual. For the second Olympics in a row, France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet was the one taking the gold medal at Beijing 2022 at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre. Taking silver was Anton Smolski of Belarus, who was a surprising sight to see, but missed none on the range. Johannes Thingnes Boe of Norway somehow held onto the bronze, giving him two medals to date.
J.T. Boe took off second chasing ROC’s Maxim Tsvetkov, who went out first on the 4.025km course. Tarjei Boe left the starting line in the fourth position, who looked to be near his brother, and set up a potential podium finish with his brother. It took 45 minutes for the entire starting line to enter the course, with some of the best taking off first.
J.T. Boe came into the range and hit four out of five in the prone position, taking a minute penalty to his overall time. His brother nailed it and sat 18 seconds behind Tsvetkov’s first lap time. Canada’s Scott Gow left the range perfectly and moved closer to J.T. Boe 14 seconds behind the overall leader.
During the second visit to the range, Tsvetkov came in with J.T Boe and left clean with the Norwegian, who kept with the Russian in the second position. His brother entered the range at 19:20 and took just 11 seconds to go five for five at the range. The Canadian returned and missed one despite moving quickly through the targets.
Tsvetkov’s lead at the 10.9km market was 25 seconds of J.T. Boe as he managed to split the deficit in half. He arrived back at the range for a third time clearing before Tsvetkov, but still 28 seconds back of the ROC athlete. Tarjei cleared the prone position for the third time but needed some ahead of him to fall back.
Tsvetkov remained 15 seconds ahead of J.T. Boe before the last visit to the shooting range. The Norwegian managed to miss one just like Tsvetkov, making it a very close finish for the two. 11 seconds stood between Boe and the gold medal, but there were still good skiers left to finish up. Tarjei arrived with a 50-second gap of Tsvetkov’s time, but missed his last shot, leaving him with the bronze to compete for.
Fillon Maillet moved into third with time made up against Tsvetkov, putting his efforts into third place. At the final checkpoint, the margin between Tsvetkov and J.T. Boe was 1.5 seconds, setting up an amazing finish for the two, who both closed in on the finish line. J.T. Boe put in a time of 49:18.5 with Tsvetkov coming in 3.8 seconds later. Tarjei closed out his race far from medal contention 59 seconds behind his brother.
Fillon Maillet made a huge difference to the time differential, missing as many as J.T. Boe, but beating him with a time of 48:47.4. With a 31 second gap between himself and the Norwegian, it left the door open for others to sit between the two. Smolsk got into the gap between the Frenchman and Norwegian, sitting in second 14.8 seconds behind the overall time.
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