Paavo Puurunen (born 28 August 1973 in

Kuhmo Kuhmo (known as ''Kuhmoniemi'' until 1937) is a town and a municipality in Finland and is located at the south-eastern corner of the Kainuu region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population ...

, Kainuu) is a retired

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

biathlete The biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. It is treated as a race, with contestants skiing through a cross-country trail whose distance is divided into shooting rounds. The shooting rounds are not time ...

who competed at four

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

. Puurunen debuted on the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

scene in the 1995/96 season. His best overall placing is from 1997/98 season when he finished 13th. He won his lone world cup victory in

Pokljuka The Pokljuka Plateau () is a forested karst plateau at an elevation of around , located in the Julian Alps in northwestern Slovenia. The plateau is known for its forests, mountain pastures (Javornik, Lipanca, Uskovnica, Zajamniki, etc.), and w ...

in 2001, in the

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

, on the 20 km. His second world cup medal bronze in a pursuit is also from world championship that happened in 2003 in

Khanty-Mansiysk Khanty-Mansiysk ( rus, Ха́нты-Манси́йск, Khánty-Mansíysk, lit. ''Khanty-Mansi Town''; Khanty: , ''Jomvoćś''; Mansi: , ''Abga'') is a city and the administrative center of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Yugra, Russia. It stan ...

. At the 2006 Olympics in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

, he took a fourth place in the mass-start competition his best Olympic result. In an ordinary world cup competition he has no better placing than 6th.

References

External links

* * 1973 births Living people People from Kuhmo Finnish male biathletes Olympic biathletes of Finland Biathletes at the 1998 Winter Olympics Biathletes at the 2002 Winter Olympics Biathletes at the 2006 Winter Olympics Biathletes at the 2010 Winter Olympics Biathlon World Championships medalists Sportspeople from Kainuu {{Finland-biathlon-bio-stub