Biathlon at the 2002 Winter Olympics – Men's sprint


The Men's 10 kilometre sprint biathlon competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics was held on 13 February, at Soldier Hollow. Competitors raced over two 3.0 kilometre loops and one 4.0 kilometre loop of the skiing course, shooting two times, once prone and once standing. Each miss was penalized by requiring the competitor to race over a 150-metre penalty loop.

Results

, having won the men's 20 kilometre Individual race two days before, came in as one of the favourites. Bjørndalen was also the defending World Cup champion in the sprint, as well as the defending Olympic champion in the discipline. In addition, he had won the 2001 test event at Soldier Hollow, beating countryman Frode Andresen, and won one of the four World Cup sprints earlier in the season. Raphaël Poirée, the defending overall World Cup champion, had also won a World Cup sprint race in 2001/02, but neither Poirée nor Bjørndalen was leading the World Cup standings, which were closely contested between Andresen, Frank Luck and the defending World Champion in the distance, Pavel Rostovtsev.
Germans Ricco Groß and Sven Fischer set the early pace, both shooting clear on the first shoot, then missing one in the second, with Fischer pulling away over the last loop to lead his countryman by 25 seconds at the finish. Poirée led both of them after the first shoot, but put two shots wide on his final round, dropping him out of contention. Rovstovtsev, not skiing as quickly as Poirée, was also well placed after one shoot, but his one miss on the second left him five seconds behind Groß at the finish.
Andresen, fresh off a disappointment in the final round of shooting in the individual, was clear on the first shoot, and quick on the skis, but, like the individual, struggled on the last shoot, missing twice and ending up in 8th. The man starting directly behind him, Wolfgang Perner, was slower on the course, but didn't miss a shot, and just managed to edge Groß at the line, finishing 0.2 seconds ahead for, at the time, second place.
But Bjørndalen was still to come, and did not disappoint. The Norwegian shot clear at the opening attempt, but only left the range in 4th, behind Poirée, Andresen and Fischer. However, where all three of those had stumbled at the second shooting round, Bjørndalen made no mistake, shooting clear. He left the range 30 seconds ahead of his closest competitor, Fischer, and held that lead until the finish line for his second gold medal of the games.
This was Bjørndalen's third Olympic gold medal, making him the first biathlete to achieve such a feat.
The race was held at 11:00.
RankBibNameCountryTimePenalties Deficit
81Ole Einar Bjørndalen24:51.30
10Sven Fischer25:20.21
63Wolfgang Perner25:44.40
6Ricco Groß25:44.61
23Wolfgang Rottmann25:48.82
39Pavel Rostovtsev25:50.11
24Viktor Maigourov25:50.90
62Frode Andresen25:51.52 +1:00.2
35Raphaël Poirée25:56.92 +1:05.6
102Ludwig Gredler26:04.32 +1:13.0
1187Oleg Ryzhenkov26:05.50 +1:14.2
1258Vadim Sashurin26:09.90 +1:18.6
1377Halvard Hanevold26:12.50 +1:21.2
1472Zdeněk Vítek26:14.01 +1:22.7
1551Michael Greis26:18.42 +1:27.1
1650Paavo Puurunen26:24.71 +1:33.4
1755Björn Ferry26:30.52 +1:39.2
1874Wojciech Kozub26:31.91 +1:40.6
1917Timo Antila26:33.41 +1:42.1
2034Jeremy Teela26:36.62 +1:45.3
218Vincent Defrasne26:36.72 +1:45.4
2275René Cattarinussi26:37.31 +1:46.0
2349Tomaž Globočnik26:40.01 +1:48.7
2476Egil Gjelland26:42.51 +1:51.2
2529Vesa Hietalahti26:43.20 +1:51.9
2667Jay Hakkinen26:43.51 +1:52.2
2784Marko Dolenc26:47.01 +1:55.7
2882Carl Johan Bergman26:47.11 +1:55.8
2937Frank Luck26:47.72 +1:56.4
301Dimitri Borovik26:50.12 +1:58.8
3154Tomasz Sikora26:59.31 +2:08.0
3283Tomáš Holubec27:01.81 +2:10.5
3342Sergey Rusinov27:04.31 +2:13.0
3444Roman Dostál27:04.92 +2:13.6
3556Julien Robert27:05.12 +2:13.8
3616Vyacheslav Derkach27:05.31 +2:14.0
3759Alexei Aidarov27:06.42 +2:15.1
3826Andriy Deryzemlia27:11.11 +2:19.8
3911Marek Matiaško27:12.61 +2:21.3
4041Ilmārs Bricis27:17.32 +2:26.0
4130Kyoji Suga27:21.01 +2:29.7
4231Marian Blaj27:25.51 +2:34.2
4352Robin Clegg27:28.32 +2:37.0
4473Janez Marič27:28.62 +2:37.3
4527Janno Prants27:29.23 +2:37.9
4680Oļegs Maļuhins27:30.73 +2:39.4
4721Petr Garabík27:30.92 +2:39.6
4869Indrek Tobreluts27:31.12 +2:39.8
4925Paolo Longo27:31.90 +2:40.6
5086Wilfried Pallhuber27:35.71 +2:44.4
5143Sergei Rozhkov27:39.84 +2:48.5
5219Jēkabs Nākums27:40.91 +2:49.6
5366Ruslan Lysenko27:43.12 +2:51.8
5420Lawton Redman27:43.42 +2:52.1
5545Roland Zwahlen27:43.71 +2:52.4
5638Zhang Qing27:45.33 +2:54.0
5640Aleksandr Syman27:45.31 +2:54.0
5813Wiesław Ziemianin27:47.02 +2:55.7
5922Sašo Grajf27:52.62 +3:01.3
6060Georgi Kasabov27:55.81 +3:04.5
6178Krzysztof Topór28:02.23 +3:10.9
625Hidenori Isa28:03.62 +3:12.3
6368Henrik Forsberg28:04.06 +3:12.7
6464Jean-Marc Chabloz28:08.61 +3:17.3
6570Gundars Upenieks28:11.93 +3:20.6
6632Gilles Marguet28:20.14 +3:28.8
679Matthias Simmen28:22.83 +3:31.5
6818Devis Da Canal28:25.92 +3:34.6
6971Yukio Mochizuki28:28.52 +3:37.2
7079Roland Lessing28:34.42 +3:43.1
7161Jason Sklenar28:43.44 +3:52.1
727Mark Gee28:57.82 +4:06.5
7365Olli-Pekka Peltola28:58.51 +4:07.2
7453Mike Dixon28:58.71 +4:07.4
754Imre Tagscherer29:08.63 +4:17.3
7685Roman Pryma29:16.13 +4:24.8
7728Aleksandr Tropnikov29:30.22 +4:38.9
7812Tord Wiksten29:39.54 +4:48.2
7933Dmitry Pantov29:46.35 +4:55.0
8047Shin Byung-Kook29:51.12 +4:59.8
8136Ricardo Oscare30:00.23 +5:08.9
8248Liutauras Barila30:01.45 +5:10.1
8346Mihail Gribuşencov30:02.22 +5:10.9
8415Žarko Galjanić30:33.03 +5:41.7
8514Stavros Khristoforidis31:51.42 +7:00.1
863Carlos Varas32:48.10 +7:56.8
57Christoph SumannDNF2