Halvard Hanevold came from behind to win the men's biathlon 20-kilometer individual event Wednesday, securing Norway's first gold medal of the Nagano Olympic Winter Games.

Hanevold fell behind with a missed target in the final round of shooting in the standing position at Nozawa Onsen, but a surge down the final stretch of the hilly cross country course lifted him to the gold medal with a total time of 56 minutes, 16.4 seconds.

''I was aiming for the silver medal and not thinking about the gold,'' Hanevold told reporters. ''At the last kilometer, I started to hope for gold and I gave everything that I had in myself.''

The win by the 28-year-old student in civil engineering from Trondheim, Norway, comes as a major surprise for Hanevold, who was a distant 46th in the Lillehammer Olympics four years ago and had not registered a World Cup through last year.

He notched his first World Cup victory in Italy a month ago.

The silver medal Wednesday went to clean-shooting Pier Alberto Carrara of Italy with a total racing time of 56:21.9 while the bronze medal went to Aleksei Aidarov of Belarus with a 56:46.5, including one miss.

Japan's Kyoji Suga crossed the line in 59:15.6 with two missed targets to finish in 14th place -- the host country's highest Olympic biathlon finish for a male competitor ever and one rank in front of 1994 Olympic gold medalist and 1996 world champion Serguei Tarasov of Russia. (Kyodo News)

Results of biathlon men's 20 kilometers Wednesday in the 18th Olympic Winter Games at Biathlon Venue, Nozawa Onsen, Nagano Prefecture:

1. Halvard Hanevold, Norway 56 minutes, 16.4 seconds (missing targets 1)

2. Pier Carrara, Italy 56:21.9 (0)

3. Aleksei Aidarov, Belarus 56:46.5 (1)

4. Ivan Masarik, Czech Republic 57:30.7 (1)

5. Ilmars Bricis, Latvia 58:15.1 (3)

6. Ricco Gross, Germany 58:15.4 (1)

7. Ole Bjoerndalen, Norway 58:16.8 (4)

8. Peter Sendel, Germany 58:30.3 (1)

9. Oleg Ryzhenkov, Belarus 58:31.3 (2)

10. Dag Bjoerndalen, Norway 58:34.7 (1)

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14. Kyoji Suga, Japan 59:15.6 (2)

28. Hironao Meguro, Japan 1:00:38.2 (2)

36. Aleksandr Tropnikov, Kyrgyzstan 1:01:17.7 (2)

45. Atsushi Kazama, Japan 1:02:23.5 (4)

49. Dimitriy Pantov, Kazakstan 1:03:10.5 (5)

52. Valeriy Ivanov, Kazakstan 1:03:55.9 (7)

59. Dmitriy Pozdnyakov, Kazakstan 1:05:22.9 (6)

71. Jeon Jae Won, South Korea 1:15:17.8 (13)