The women's 15-kilometre individual

biathlon 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 ti ...

competition at the

2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 (; Gosiute dialect, Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; ; Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), were an international wi ...

was held on 11 February, at

Soldier Hollow Soldier Hollow is a cross-country ski venue located at the mouth of a hollow of the same name about southeast of Salt Lake City in Wasatch Mountain State Park in northwestern Wasatch County, Utah, United States. The venue was created for th ...

. Competitors raced over five loops of a 3.0-kilometre skiing course, shooting four times, twice prone and twice standing. Each miss resulted in one minute being added to a competitor's skiing time.

Results

The

Biathlon World Cup The Biathlon World Cup is a top-level biathlon season-long competition series. It has been held since the winter seasons of 1977–78 for men and 1982–83 for women. The women's seasons until 1986–87 season were called the European Cup, alt ...

test event in 2001 was won by

Magdalena Forsberg Magdalena "Magda" Forsberg (née Wallin; born 25 July 1967) is a Swedish former cross-country skier and biathlete. She was the dominant female biathlete from 1997 to 2002, when she retired, winning the Biathlon World Cup for six years straight. ...

, who shot clear and won by more than a minute from Martina Zellner, a German who was not selected for her national team for the 2002 Games. Forsberg was also the defending world champion and World Cup champion in the distance , and led the World Cup in the discipline, having won two of the three Individual races earlier in the season. However despite a long history of success, she had never won an Olympic medal. Liv Grete Skjelbreid-Poirée won the other event of the season, at Antholz, while

Ekaterina Dafovska Ekaterina Stefanova Dafovska (; born 28 November 1975 in Chepelare, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian former biathlete. She took up the biathlon in 1990. She made the national team in 1993 and came in 29th in the 15-kilometer competition at the L ...

was the defending Olympic champion. The 25-year-old

Andrea Henkel Andrea Burke, née Henkel (born 10 December 1977) is a retired German professional biathlete and the younger sister of Manuela Henkel, a successful cross-country skier. She trained at SV Großbreitenbach. Andrea Henkel started out as a cross- ...

started before some of her more heralded competition, but recovered well after missing a shot on her second loop, making all ten of her remaining shots to add just the single minute to her ski time. Katrin Apel and

Uschi Disl Ursula "Uschi" Disl (; born 15 November 1970) is a German former biathlete. Career During her competitive career Disl was a 19-year veteran of biathlon and was a five time olympian, with two Olympic gold medals from the 4 × 7.5 km relay ...

each beat Henkel's time going into the final shoot, despite missing shots earlier, but both missed three times on the final shoot, ending up outside the top 10. Olga Pyleva set the fastest times after the second and third shoots, leading Henkel by more than a minute, but sent two wide on the last shoot, and ended up 45 seconds behind the leading German. Defending champion

missed one shot in the race, like Henkel, but her ski speed wasn't enough to get close to a medal.- Competition Analysis, Women's 15 km Individual - SLOC
/ref> Liv Grete Skjelbreid-Poirée had an identical shooting line to Henkel, and while she was ahead of the German on the first two shoots, she fell behind on ski time, and ended up seven seconds back in second, well ahead of Pyleva, then in bronze position. The final serious challenge was from

, who had won many World Championships, but did not have an Olympic medal. Forsberg was well over a minute clear of Henkel and Poirée as she approached the final shoot, but missed twice, losing any chance at gold. She did manage to get in for bronze, displacing Pyleva. The race was started at 11:00.Final results
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biathlon at the 2002 Winter Olympics - Women's individual Women's biathlon at the 2002 Winter Olympics