The results of the XVII Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer. (XVII ...

XVII OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
Biathlon
Serguei Tarasov winning the 20km biathlon.
BIRKEBEINER STADIUM
Serguei Tarasov, who took two
world cup titles last year, had his
biggest individual victory to date in
the 20km, skiing brilliantly to overcome
three penalty laps: “When I
missed at the first series of shots, my
nerves lost their grip and I just let go
and almost didn’t care...Prior to the
competition, I reckoned about fifteen
bad medal chances. I’m overjoyed
that it was me that took the gold.” The
Russian, who had a team title in
Calgary, won by the closest margin,
3.4 seconds, to hold off the usual
strong challenge from the Germans.
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Frank Luck finished eleven seconds
ahead of his brother-in-law Sven
Fischer for the silver. In the 101km,
both gold and silver medallists hit all
their targets. The title went to another
Russian, Serguei Tchepikov, who
just missed the podium in Albertville.
Ricco Gross of Germany was runnerup
for the second consecutive time.
“This silver medal carries more
weight,” he said. “Today I was the best
German, and that is a lot of fun.”
Tarasov, who had to ski one penalty
leg, finished third to take his second
medal.
The three German individual medallists
were joined by Mark Kirchner,
gold and silver individual medallist in
Albertville, in the 4 x 7.5km relay.
Kirchner was well off the individual
podiums, but there was no stopping
such a strong German team from
helping itself to its second consecutive
title in the relay. The two Russian
individual champions ensured their
team’s silver medal. When three penalty
rounds on the final leg for
Andreas Zingerle knocked the Italians
off the podium, there was a
thrilling race for the bronze. Hervé
Flandin hit a decisive one target more
than Popov of Belarus to clinch the
bronze for the French.
Women’s biathlon, new to the programme
in Albertville, again proved
very popular, with capacity crowds
of 12,500 in the Birkebeiner Stadium.
Myriam Bedard of Canada, bronze
medallist in Albertville, and silver
medallist in the 1993 world championship,
took the 15km gold. Her final
time of 52:6.6 included two minutes
of penalties. She was 46.7 seconds
ahead of Anne Briand, a member of
the French champion team in 1992,
who missed a third shot on the last