Men 4x7.5 km Relay Competition

Norwegian anchor Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen needing just ten shots to close his ten targets, brought Norway from 43 seconds back to the Gold medal in the men’s 4 X 7.5 km relay this afternoon at the Beijing Olympic Winter Games in a time of 1:19:50.2 His perfect shooting allowed the Norwegian squad of Christiansen, Sturla Holm Laegreid, Tarjei Boe and Johannes Thingnes Boe, with one penalty and seven spare rounds to overtake the ROC as their anchor leg, Eduard Latypov used all three spare rounds, picking up two penalty loops. The Gold medal was Norway’s first in the men’s relay since 2010. Tarjei Boe also ran the second leg on that Gold-medal team. Christiansen’s anchor leg brought him his first-ever Olympic medal in his first OWG. France, anchored by Quentin Fillon Maillet had nine spare rounds, taking the Silver medal, 27.4 seconds back. The Silver medal gave Fillon Maillet his fifth medal of these Games, an all-time French record, while also becoming the first-ever biathlete to win five medals in a single Games. Fabien Claude won his first-ever OWG medal. ROC, with two penalties and six spare rounds won the Bronze medal, 45.3 seconds back. Said Karimulla Khalili and Maksim Tsvetkov won their first-ever OWG medals today.

Relays fill the mid-week Olympic menu and both the men’s and women’s look like close competitions that will depend heavily on avoiding the penalty loop and good ski preparation in slow snow and tough Zhangjiakou tracks.