Biathlon At The 2010 Winter Olympics – Men's Pursuit
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The men's pursuit competition in
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 ...
at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics was held at
Whistler Olympic Park The Whistler Olympic Park is the location of the Nordic and Biathlon events facilities for the 2010 Winter Olympics and is located in the Madeley Creek basin in the Callaghan Valley, west of Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. The facility hosted ...
in
Whistler, British Columbia Whistler (, ; , ) is a resort municipality in Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, British Columbia, Canada. It is located in the southern Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains, approximately north of Vancouver and south of Pemberton, Britis ...
on February 16, 2010. It was won by Swedish athlete
Björn Ferry Björn Ferry (born 1 August 1978 in Stensele, Storuman, Västerbotten) is a former Swedish biathlete and medal winning Olympian. He began competing internationally in World Cup competitions in 2001, but did not win his first international race ...
, after both Ferry and second place finisher
Christoph Sumann Christoph "Sumi" Sumann (19 January 1976) is a former Austrian biathlete. Life and career As was the case with many of his fellow biathletes, Sumann switched over from cross-country skiing, which he had been doing since childhood. By the mid-199 ...
of Austria successfully pursued and overtook the leader at the start of the race, France's Vincent Jay.


Competition

The pursuit takes place over a distance of . The start of the competition was marred by irregularities in how officials released athletes at the beginning of their runs. In pursuit competitions, athlete's start times are staggered by the differences in their times in a previous sprint, in this case the 10km sprint event held on February 14. Thus, officials need to release athletes to begin the event at exact times. Athletes in both the men's and women's pursuit competitions were started earlier and later than their appropriate times, resulting in a number of complaints from coaches and athletes. Officials attempted to correct the errors by making alterations in the final times of competitors. Nonetheless, media reports cited the incident as embarrassing for the
International Biathlon Union The International Biathlon Union (IBU; ) is the international governing body of biathlon. Its headquarters were in Salzburg, Austria, until May 2020, when the Federation moved to Anif, on the outskirts of the city. It was rocked by a corruption ...
. Norbert Baier, the chief technical delegate from the IBU at the Games and the official responsible for ensuring that the rules were implemented correctly by officials, called it, "the worst day of my career." Following the sprint, Vincent Jay of
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
led the field and started first. Jay would continue to set the pace throughout much of the race.
Björn Ferry Björn Ferry (born 1 August 1978 in Stensele, Storuman, Västerbotten) is a former Swedish biathlete and medal winning Olympian. He began competing internationally in World Cup competitions in 2001, but did not win his first international race ...
of
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, who started the race in 8th place more than a minute behind Jay, pushed hard through much of the race and finally overtook Jay in the final lap. Following Ferry, Austrian
Christoph Sumann Christoph "Sumi" Sumann (19 January 1976) is a former Austrian biathlete. Life and career As was the case with many of his fellow biathletes, Sumann switched over from cross-country skiing, which he had been doing since childhood. By the mid-199 ...
also overtook Jay and won the silver medal. Jay held on to third place, beating his closest opponent by less than three seconds at the finish line, and securing the bronze medal. Ferry's victory was the first Olympic biathlon gold medal won by a Swedish athlete in 50 years. Norwegian competitors
Emil Hegle Svendsen Emil Hegle Svendsen (born 12 July 1985) is a retired Norwegian biathlete. He has won eight medals at Winter Olympics (four gold) and five individual gold medals and seven relay gold medals at World Championships. He skis with Trondhjems Skiskytt ...
and
Ole Einar Bjørndalen Ole Einar Bjørndalen (; born 27 January 1974) is a retired Norwegian professional biathlete and coach, often referred to by the nickname, the "King of Biathlon". With 13 Winter Olympic Games medals, he is second on the list of multiple medali ...
, a five-time Olympic champion, were expected to do well before the race but failed to live up to those expectations. Svendsen missed four shooting targets and Bjørndalen finished nearly a minute behind Ferry.


Confusion and starter errors

Observers and participants reported that several starter errors occurred during the race start. Competitors Jeremy Teela and Jean-Philippe Leguellec were started too early, before racers who were seeded higher than them. Teela stated that the early start threw-off his strategy, contributing to his missing two targets in his first two shooting range stops. Said Teela, "We have a couple more races this week. Hopefully the organizers figure this problem out and they make the races fair." Starter confusion was reportedly also present during the Women's pursuit earlier that day. U.S. coach Per Nilsson stated that he had never seen an Olympic biathlon as poorly managed as the February 16 women's race.Gustus, Lauren, (
Gannett News Service Gannett Co., Inc. ( ) is an American mass media holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. It owns the national newspaper ''USA Today'', as well as severa ...
),
Starter error frustrates biathletes, guardsman
", ''
Military Times Sightline Media Group, formerly Gannett Government Media and Army Times Publishing Company, is a United States company that publishes newspapers, magazines, websites, and other publications about the U.S. and other militaries. The company's '' ...
'', February 18, 2010.


Results


See also

* Biathlon at the 2010 Winter Paralympics – Men's pursuit


References


External links


2010 Winter Olympics results: Men's 12.5 km Pursuit
from https://web.archive.org/web/20091025194336/http://www.vancouver2010.com/; retrieved 2010-02-15. {{DEFAULTSORT:Biathlon at the 2010 Winter Olympics - Men's pursuit Pursuit