Programs
Competitions
Venues
Access
A la carte
Photo Album
From the Olympics Toword Tomorrow
 |
Germany takes gold in men's biathlon relay
13:00- Start
Two-time Olympic defending champion Germany lagged one second behind after two runners but stormed ahead the rest of the way, forging a 20-second victory in the men's biathlon relay at the Nagano Olympic Winter Games on Saturday.
Ricco Gross, Peter Sendel, Sven Fischer and Frank Luck combined in the 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay for a winning time of 1 hour, 21 minutes, 36.2 seconds over the tough Nozawa Onsen course in a light snow for Germany's third consecutive gold medal in the relay event.
Germany, which led the Nagano medals tally with a total of 28 as of Saturday afternoon, closed out the biathlon competition with its second gold medal -- after a victory in the women's relay -- and fifth biathlon medal overall
Norway, with individual gold medalists Halvard Hanevold and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen on its team, earned the silver with a time of 1:21:56.3, while Russia took the bronze at 1:22:19.3.
German lead-off racer Gross, on his way to a third consecutive gold medal in the relay, gave his country an 8.9-second lead over Latvia at the exchange.
Ilmars Bricis, a member of Latvia's 16th place relay teams in Albertville and Lillehammer, however, outran German team newcomer Peter Sendel with Saturday's best lap time of 19:46.7.
Germany's Fischer, a member of the Lillehammer gold medal team, regained the lead and opened it to 10 seconds ahead of second-place Russia. Luck closed with a workmanlike effort to secure the gold.
Norway's anchor Bjoerndalen, 10-km sprint gold medalist in Nagano, turned in the second-best time of the day at 19:48.8 to edge Russia out for the silver. (Kyodo News)
Results of biathlon men's 4x7.5-kilometer relay Saturday at the 18th Olympic Winter Games at Biathlon Venue, Nozawa Onsen, Nagano Prefecture:
1. Germany (Ricco Gross, Peter Sendel, Sven Fischer, Frank Luck)
1 hour, 21 minutes 36.2 seconds
2. Norway (Egil Gjelland, Halvard Hanevold, Dag Bjoerndalen, Ole Bjoerndalen) 1:21:56.3
3. Russia (Pavel Mouslimov, Vladimir Dratschev, Serguei Tarassov, Victor Maigourov) 1:22:19.3
4. Belarus (Aleksei Aidarov, Oleg Ryzhenkov, Aleksandr Popov, Vadim Sashurin) 1:23:14.0
5. Poland (Wieslaw Ziemianin, Tomasz Sikora, Jan Ziemianin, Wojciech Kozub) 1:24:09.8
6. Latvia (Olegs Maluhins, Ilmars Bricis, Gundars Upenieks, Jekabs Nakums) 1:24:24.4
7. France (Andreas Heymann, Raphael Poiree, Thierry Dusserre, Patrice Bailly-Salins) 1:24:53.0
8. Finland (Ville Raikkonen, Paavo Puurunen, Harri Eloranta, Olli-Pekka Peltola) 1:25:01.4
9. Italy (Patrick Favre, Wilfried Pallhuber, Rene Cattarinussi, Pier Carrara) 1:25:07.3
10. Sweden (Mikael Loefgren, Jonas Eriksson, Tord Wiksten, Fredrik Kuoppa) 1:25:25.7
-----
15. Japan (Kyoji Suga, Hironao Meguro, Shuichi Sekiya, Atsushi Kazama) 1:27:55.7
16. Kazakstan (Dimitriy Pantov, Dmitriy Pozdnyakov, Alexandr Menchshikov, Valeriy Ivanov) 1:27:56.0
No part of the article, photographs, or illustrations presented here may be printed or used without permission.
Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun