Norway’s clean-shooting Marte Olsbu Roeiseland left the standing stage of this evening’s Beijing Olympic Women’s 7.5 km sprint with a 12.9 second lead on the field; she then proceeded to sprint through the last 2.5 km to win the Women’s Olympic Sprint Gold medal in 20:44.3. The Gold medal today gave the Norwegian star a complete set of Olympic medals in individual competitions, having won Bronze in this week’s 15 km individual and Silver in the 2018 Pyeongchang Women’s Sprint. She also owns a Mixed Relay Gold medal from these Games and Mixed Relay Gold and Relay Silver medals from 2018. Sweden’s Elvira Oeberg also shot clean and with a powerful last loop winning the Silver medal, 30.9 seconds back. The Silver medal is Oeberg’s first-ever in a senior level Championship, having previously won medals at both the Youth and Junior levels at the IBU YJWCH. Italy’s Dorothea Wierer also shooting clean won her first-ever individual Olympic medal, taking Bronze, 37.2 seconds back. Wierer has two Olympic Mixed Relay Bronze medals from the 2014 and 2018 OWG.

Austria’s Lisa Theresa Hauser and Norway’s Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold both shot clean, finishing with Olympic personal bests in fourth and fifth place, 47.3 and 1:00.2 back. Kristina Reztsova of ROC, with two penalties and also an OWG personal best, finished sixth, 1:05 back.

Calm Winds: Clean Prone shooting

Compared to the previous competitions, conditions for this evening’s sprint were quite mild, with virtually no wind, under cloudy skies and the thermometer reading at -4C as started number 1 Tiril Eckhoff left the start house. She shot slowly in the prone stage, picking up a single penalty. 2018 Sprint Silver medalist Olsbu Roeiseland shot confidently and clean, putting her at the top of the leaderboard Wierer shot fast and clean, just 4 seconds slower than Olsbu Roeiseland. Hauser challenged with a perfect prone stage, putting her into third position, 9 seconds back. Elvira came to her prone stage less than a second slower than the Norwegian leader; she cleaned with a steady cadence, leaving with the top prone time, by a mere .4 seconds.

Clean and Confident in Standing

Olsbu Roeiseland came to the standing stage with a 44-second lead, again shot confidently and clean, setting the bar high for the rest of the field. Wierer came to standing 22 seconds slower than her Norwegian rival, but blew the five targets away so fast; cutting the deficit to12 seconds as she left for the last loop. Hauser put in her podium bid by going to 10-for-10, putting her 27 seconds back. Tandrevold just before Hauser cleaned, but remained 6 seconds slower than the Austrian.

Elvira came to standing 20 seconds slower than the leader, shot very carefully but clean, leaving in third, 12 seconds behind Wierer.

Elvira Powers to the Silver medal

The last loop was all-Marte; she skied powerfully over the whole 2.5 km, leaving nothing to chance, finishing with a lead of over a minute with most of the field to come. Wierer lost time on the last loop, finishing 37.2 seconds slower than the Norwegian leader. Hauser also lost time in the last loop, putting her another ten seconds behind Wierer at the finish and off the podium. By the 5.9 km split, Elvira had closed to within 2 seconds of Wierer and was gaining time with every stride. The effort was etched on her face as she got down to just over a second with one kilometer to go. Driving her poles with all the power in her body down the last 100 meters, Elvira crossed the line 6.3 seconds faster than her Italian rival, setting the podium.

“Dream come true”

Elvira admitted that winning the Silver medal was a dream come true and, “just crazy…my performance today. Then to be able to share this with the team and my sister is amazing. Hanna said she was super proud of me and that really deserved this medal. Those are amazing words to hear. We really worked hard together as a team to get here and we take this medal as team also…When I was at home (4 years ago) watching the previous Olympics I was so impressed by those performances, I was really inspired…I wanted to take an Olympic medal; now I managed to do it. It is a dream come true.”

Photos: IBU/Christian Manzoni