Biathlon 2018/Men's 20 km

Men's 20 km
General information
Sport	Biathlon 2018
Date	15 February 2018
Competitors	86 athletes
Venue	Alpensia Biathlon Centre
Previous medalists
Gold	Martin Fourcade
Silver	Erik Lesser
Bronze	Evgeniy Garanichev
Conditions
Temperature	-3°C / 26.6°F
Length	19761 metres
Height	37 metres
Medalists
	Johannes Thingnes Boe
	Jakov Fak
	Dominik Landertinger

The men's 20 km of Biathlon 2018 during the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 15 February 2018 in the Alpensia Biathlon Centre. With 86 athletes competing, the event was won by Johannes Thingnes Boe from Norway, with Jakov Fak from Slovenia taking the silver medal and Dominik Landertinger from Austria taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of five rounds of 4 kilometres, broken up by shooting at five targets. The athletes started 30 seconds from each other, each missed target causing a minute penalty. The competitor with the fastest time after 20 kilometres is the winner.

Preview

Eighty-six athletes qualified for the event, with Martin Fourcade as the man to beat. He had won four out of the previous five mondial events, including a gold medal at Sochi 2014. The only gold medal he missed, was of the World Championships in 2017, when Lowell Bailey was able to beat him by 21 seconds. His current season saw an average shooting rate of 91%, and with a course fit for him, he was the big favorite. His biggest challenger would be Johannes Thingnes Boe, but his (in)experience had seen him start and shoot very fast, and with an event like the 20 kilometers, this could be fatal. Another medal contender would be Jakov Fak, who had a shooting rate of 94% in the current season, although his speed had been a bit low, compared to Fourcade and Thingnes Boe. He just came back from illness, his expectations were a bit lowered compared to an earlier stage, although he was someone to keep in mind. Other medal contenders would be Erik Lesser, the silver medalist of Sochi 2014, and Emil Hegle Svendsen, who was the Olympic champion of Vancouver 2010. The Austrian biathletes would be outsiders for a medal, with Dominik Landertinger and Simon Eder as the sharpshooters of the team.

Results

The fastest first lap was run by Frenchman Emilien Jacquelin, with a time of 8:02.6 minutes, but after a slow and inaccurate shooting turn, where he lost two minutes due to penalties, favorite Martin Fourcade took the lead after a slow and focused tempo in the shooting. His four-kilometre lap, excluding the range time, was only 2 seconds faster than Johannes Thingnes Boe, though the latter missed one of his five shots, and four seconds faster than Simon Desthieux. Jesper Nelin took a comfortable third place, behind Fourcade and Desthieux, almost four seconds ahead of Arnd Peiffer and Tarjei Boe, who were only 0.1 seconds apart. The most influential shooting results were from medal contenders Johannes Thingnes Boe and Simon Eder, who were suddenly a minute behind the competition, 52nd and 57th place, respectively, and Lowell Bailey, who missed two shots and went down to 77th place.

J. Thingnes Boe was able to run to the fastest second lap, and without any misses on the second shooting turn, he was able to catch up on time and positions, climbing up to a 12th position. Desthieux was able to retain his fast laps, this time skiing the second lap, but due to two misses, he lost two minutes, and dropped down to the 36th position in the provisional rankings. His lap time was the same as Germany's Johannes Kuehn, and after a miss on the first shooting turn, Kuehn missed again in the second, having a 38th position in the rankings. The fastest combined time after the first standing was retained by Martin Fourcade, this time with Sweden's Nelin and Sebastian Samuelsson behind him. Peiffer was the only other biathlete to stay within ten seconds, and Tarjei Boe completed the top 5. However, Jakov Fak and Dominik Landertinger stayed close behind, staying within the top 10.

The fastest split time of the third lap was achieved by Latvian Andrejs Rastorgujevs, who missed three times in the second prone. The second-fastest intermediate of the third lap was Julian Eberhard, who climbed from 47th place to 23rd place, and J. Thingnes Boe once again had a good lap, climbing to fourth place, while Fourcade stayed faultless after another good lap, retaining his first position. Nelin stayed in second place, though he lost 13 seconds on Fourcade, retaining his advantage over Tarjei Boe, who was only 4 seconds in front of his brother Johannes. Fak entered the top 5, with Samuelsson missing a shot and dropping down to 13th place. First-started Fredrik Lindstroem and Landertinger stayed within a minute of Fourcade.

In the fourth lap, J. Thingnes Boe was the only one who was able to stay within 9 minutes, but because Fourcade, who had the third time of the lap, missed twice, he was able to gain a spot to enter the top 3. Vladimir Iliev, who had the second split time, was no threat to Boe, as the former climbed up to a 24th place, after missing a shot as well. The same counted for Julian Eberhard, who climbed to a 23rd place, after the fourth intermediate time, and Simon Desthieux, who climbed to 31st place. Because Fourcade lost two minutes, the lead was taken over by Dominik Landertinger, who won 15 seconds over the new number two Jakov Fak. Sebastian Samuelsson and Benjamin Weger climbed to fourth and fifth place after all four biathletes remained faultless in the last shooting turn, in comparison to J. Thingnes Boe, who missed once again, and Fourcade, who missed twice. With one lap to go, Landertinger had a 4 second lead over Fak, and an 8 second lead over Boe, while number 4 had to compensate for over 30 seconds deficit.

The fastest time of the final sprint was run by Johannes Thingnes Boe, who was 10 seconds faster than Fak and 22 seconds faster than Landertinger, assigning them to second and third place, respectively. Fourcade was able to gain a spot in the rankings, climbing to fifth place, at the expense of Benjamin Weger, while Samuelsson had the third time of the last lap, retaining his fourth place. Almost 30 seconds behind Weger, Michal Krcmar had a 6 seconds advantage over Fredrik Lindstroem, while Erik Lesser and former Olympic champion Emil Hegle Svendsen completed the top 10.

Johannes Thingnes Boe won his first Olympic medal, despite having been a heavy favorite for the earlier sprint and pursuit. Jakov Fak earned his best results at Olympic biathlon, after already winning a bronze medal at the sprint event eight years before, and a fourth place at the mass start in 2014, remaining the only Slovenian to have won medals in biathlon. Dominik Landertinger won his fourth Olympic medal in eight years, with his only other individual medal being in the men's sprint in Sochi. Sebastian Samuelsson and Martin Fourcade were not able to follow up on their medals in the pursuit event, with Benjamin Weger the only other one to finish within a minute of Boe, equalling his best result ever.

Result	Athlete	Nationality	Misses	Time
	Johannes Thingnes Boe	Norway	2	48:03.8
	Jakov Fak	Slovenia	0	48:09.3
	Dominik Landertinger	Austria	0	48:18.0
4	Sebastian Samuelsson	Sweden	1	48:32.9
5	Martin Fourcade	France	2	48:46.2
6	Benjamin Weger	Switzerland	1	48:52.4
7	Michal Krcmar	Czech Republic	1	49:19.3
8	Fredrik Lindstroem	Sweden	1	49:25.9
9	Erik Lesser	Germany	1	49:31.1
10	Emil Hegle Svendsen	Norway	2	49:40.5
11	Simon Eder	Austria	2	49:55.8
12	Ondrej Moravec	Czech Republic	1	49:56.9
13	Tarjei Boe	Norway	2	50:05.3
14	Scott Gow	Canada	1	50:06.3
15	Klemen Bauer	Slovenia	2	50:07.0
16	Anton Babikov	Olympic Athletes from Russia	1	50:08.0
17	Julian Eberhard	Austria	3	50:15.6
18	Sergey Bocharnikov	Belarus	1	50:25.3
19	Vladimir Iliev	Bulgaria	3	50:25.9
20	Timofei Lapshin	South Korea	1	50:28.6
21	Arnd Peiffer	Germany	3	50:29.6
22	Brendan Green	Canada	1	50:30.4
23	Antonin Guigonnat	France	2	50:33.5
24	Jesper Nelin	Sweden	3	50:37.1
25	Krasimir Anev	Bulgaria	1	50:41.8
26	Christian Gow	Canada	2	51:01.0
27	Simon Desthieux	France	4	51:03.6
28	Matvey Eliseev	Olympic Athletes from Russia	3	51:07.1
29	Artem Tyshchenko	Ukraine	0	51:15.2
30	Vladimir Chepelin	Belarus	3	51:27.9
31	Volodymyr Siemakov	Ukraine	1	51:32.1
32	Kalev Ermits	Estonia	2	51:43.6
33	Grzegorz Guzik	Poland	2	51:51.8
34	Matej Kazar	Slovakia	2	51:52.4
35	Miha Dovzan	Slovenia	2	51:54.2
36	Simon Schempp	Germany	4	51:54.8
37	George Buta	Romania	1	51:55.6
38	Martin Ponsiluoma	Sweden	2	51:56.6
39	Maksim Varabei	Belarus	3	52:01.3
40	Giuseppe Montello	Italy	3	52:01.9
41	Tim Burke	United States	4	52:05.7
42	Oskars Muiznieks	Latvia	3	52:06.0
43	Dimitar Gerdzhikov	Bulgaria	3	52:12.0
44	Sean Doherty	United States	3	52:25.6
45	Michal Slesingr	Czech Republic	4	52:35.5
46	Artem Pryma	Ukraine	4	52:36.5
47	Jeremy Finello	Switzerland	3	52:37.5
48	Tuomas Gronman	Finland	3	52:44.1
49	Mario Dolder	Switzerland	3	52:46.5
50	Dominik Windisch	Italy	5	52:54.3
51	Lowell Bailey	United States	4	52:56.8
52	Raman Yaliotnau	Belarus	5	52:57.6
53	Sergii Semenov	Ukraine	3	52:57.9
54	Florent Claude	Belgium	2	53:03.2
55	Cornel Puchianu	Romania	4	53:12.1
56	Thomas Bermolini	Italy	4	53:26.6
57	Tobias Eberhard	Austria	4	53:33.6
58	Johannes Kuehn	Germany	6	53:36.6
59	Andrejs Rastorgujevs	Latvia	6	53:41.8
60	Lars Halge Birkeland	Norway	4	53:46.8
61	Maxim Braun	Kazakhstan	2	53:50.7
62	Vassiliy Podkorytov	Kazakhstan	2	53:52.5
63	Lukas Hofer	Italy	5	53:54.1
64	Mikito Tachizaki	Japan	3	54:11.5
65	Rene Zahkna	Estonia	4	54:20.1
66	Leif Nordgren	United States	5	54:31.1
67	Adam Vaclavik	Czech Republic	6	54:31.7
68	Kauri Koiv	Estonia	3	54:36.4
69	Gheorghe Pop	Romania	3	54:40.1
70	Roland Lessing	Estonia	4	54:46.0
71	Anton Sinapov	Bulgaria	5	54:48.4
72	Timur Khamitgatin	Kazakhstan	2	54:52.7
73	Olli Hiidensalo	Finland	5	54:57.6
74	Remus Faur	Romania	4	55:01.5
75	Michael Roesch	Belgium	5	55:10.1
76	Tero Seppala	Finland	6	55:10.8
77	Emiien Jacquelin	France	7	55:26.1
78	Tomas Kaukenas	Lithuania	6	55:38.4
79	Andrzej Nezda-Kubiniec	Poland	5	55:39.9
80	Mitja Drinovec	Slovenia	5	56:06.4
81	Nathan Smith	Canada	5	56:15.7
82	Vytautas Strolia	Lithuania	6	56:27.0
83	Vladislav Vitenko	Kazakhstan	7	57:11.3
84	Martin Otcenas	Slovakia	5	57:16.0
85	Michal Sima	Slovakia	6	57:52.3
86	Tomas Hasilla	Slovakia	9	58:55.2