ANTERSELVA, Italy — France went from last place on the first leg to being first on the last lap to secure the country’s first Olympic gold medal in men’s biathlon relay on Tuesday at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games, upsetting defending champion Norway, while Sweden was able to hang on for the bronze.
World Cup champion Eric Perrot, skiing the final leg for France, missed two shots in his last standing shooting bout and was only seven seconds ahead of Norway’s Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen as they headed out to ski tracks packed with fresh snow.
Perrot stayed ahead of Christiansen and took his team of Fabien Claude, Emilien Jacquelin and Quentin Fillon Maillet across the line first, for a total time of one hour, 19 minutes and 55.2 seconds. Christiansen finished 9.8 seconds back for silver and Sebastian Samuelsson was 57.5 seconds behind France for the bronze.
Christiansen had skied the fourth leg for the Norway team consisting of Martin Uldal, Johan-Olav Botn and Sturla Holm Laegreid. Samuelsson was the anchor for Sweden’s team of Viktor Brandt, Jesper Nelin and Martin Ponsiluoma.
Germany came in fourth, 1:48.3 back while the United States secured fifth place, 2:27.4 behind the leaders.
Things didn’t look promising for France at the start.
The team was in a disappointing 20th place after the second shooting when Fabien Claude missed one target despite using three extra rounds and had to ski a penalty lap. He tagged off to Emilien Jacquelin, who moved the team up to fifth position with only one miss out of 10 shots and then to first place by the time he tagged off to Quentin Fillon Maillet.
Sweden, Norway and France stayed together on the tracks and the range, taking turns at the front. But when Norway and Sweden missed one on the prone shooting on the last leg, Perrot cleaned and left in first place. He maintained that position until the end.
Norway’s Laegreid said it was a disappointing result. They had finished ahead of France at the Beijing Winter Games.
“Today our eyes were set on gold,” he said. “To get silver is almost like losing gold.”
Bellisle writes for the Associated Press.