Biathlon 2018/Men's pursuit

Men's pursuit
General information
Sport	Biathlon 2018
Date	12 February 2018
Competitors	60 athletes
Venue	Alpensia Biathlon Centre
Previous medalists
Gold	Martin Fourcade
Silver	Ondrej Moravec
Bronze	Jean Guillaume Beatrix
Conditions
Temperature	-11°C / 12.2°F
Length	12921 metres
Height	36 metres
Medalists
	Martin Fourcade
	Sebastian Samuelsson
	Benedikt Doll

The men's pursuit of Biathlon 2018 during the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 12 February 2018 in the Alpensia Biathlon Centre. With 60 athletes competing, the event was won by Martin Fourcade from France, with Sebastian Samuelsson from Sweden taking the silver medal and Benedikt Doll from Germany taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of five rounds of 2.5 kilometres, broken up by shooting at five targets. The athletes started after each other, based on the time differences in the sprint event, each missed target causing an additional round of 150 meters. The competitor with the fastest time after 12.5 kilometres (or additional rounds) is the winner.

Preview

Sixty athletes qualified for the event, as the top 60 of the sprint event of the day before, which was won by Arnd Peiffer, who would start in front. However, similar to the other biathlon disciplines, Martin Fourcade was the biggest favorite to win the event, being the defending Olympic champion and the leader in the World Cup standings, though no one had ever been able to defend the pursuit title. The other medalists of the sprint, Dominik Windisch and Michal Krcmar would also start early, giving them a small advantage over the rest of the field. Julian Eberhard also performed well in the sprint. Potential outsiders included Johannes Thingnes Boe and Tarjei Boe, who had some time to catch up on after a disappointing sprint, Erlend Bjoentegaard, and Benedikt Doll.

Results

The weather conditions were similar to the day before, with chilly temperatures and hard wind. With the athletes starting based on the time differences in the sprint event, the start was already quite chaotic, but any mistake could be noticed immediately. These small shifts could already be seen after only two minutes, with Michal Krcmar losing 5 seconds and Martin Fourcade winning almost 10 seconds at this point over Arnd Peiffer. After Fourcade caught up with the following group, the lead of Peiffer diminished quickly, leaving next to nothing when arriving at the first round of shooting. Of the now six leaders, aside from Peiffer, Fourcade, and Krcmar also Dominik Windisch, Julian Eberhard, and Erlend Bjoentegaard, Eberhard and Peiffer retained the lead, while the other four missed at least one shot. Benedikt Doll and Simon Schempp followed by around 13 seconds, while Serafin Wiestner and Erik Lesser already needed to catch up on over 20 seconds. Fourcade, who missed a shot, was now back in eighth place, 28 seconds behind the leader Eberhard.

The lead of Eberhard and Peiffer was slightly extended halfway through the second lap to 16 seconds to the nearest following group, and 24 seconds to Tarjei Boe, who lead the next group. However, arriving at the second prone shooting round, the differences between the groups were once against stabilized, with Eberhard and Peiffer leading the charge into the shooting. Doll and Schempp were now roughly 10 seconds behind, but quickly followed by Fourcade, Sebastian Samuelsson, Tarjei Boe, and Lesser. Once again, Peiffer made no mistakes and would regain the lead from Eberhard, who missed once. Peiffer, who had been leading or in the leading group from the start, now had a 10 second lead on Lesser, and a lead of less than 15 seconds on Tarjei Boe, Schempp, and Samuelsson, and the rest of the field following on at least 20 seconds.

Just over halfway through the race, the lead of Eric Peiffer had been diminished to only 6 seconds to Simon Schempp, Sebastian Samuelsson, Tarjei Boe, Martin Fourcade, Erik Lesser, and Julian Eberhard, who were in hot pursuit. Most of these were still without mistakes in the shooting, except for Fourcade and Eberhard, who already had to do an additional lap of 150 metres. With Schempp, Samuelsson, Boe, and Fourcade catching up to Peiffer before the first standing shooting round, the shooting was vital to keep a good position in the second half of the race. Of the leading group of 7, Peiffer, Samuelsson, and Eberhard already missed their first shot, while Schempp, Boe, and Lesser missed other shots along the way, letting the favorite for gold Fourcade take the lead. With the other six having to race another 150 metres, Fourcade now lead by 20 seconds to Peiffer, who recovered quickly. Behind Peiffer, Tarjei Boe, Samuelsson, and Schempp remained within 30 seconds of Fourcade.

The penultimate lap of 2.5 kilometres was lead by Fourcade, who extended his lead to the chasing group to 32 seconds halfway through the fourth lap, which was lead by Tarjei Boe. In comparison with the previous lap, the chasing group consisted of the remaining members of the previous leading group, except for Lesser (who missed once) and Eberhard (who already missed four times), who were replaced by Benedikt Doll and Erlend Bjoentegaard. Behind Bjoentegaard, who closed the chasing group, Dominik Windisch followed on another 15 seconds, just like Benjamin Weger and Simon Desthieux, while Simon Eder and Andrejs Rastorgujevs were also still within a minute of the leader. Arriving at the last shooting round, the lead of Fourcade to the chasing group was even extended to 40 seconds, and he already passed the time control before the first group arrived at the shooting range. Of the six chasers, Doll shot quickly to decrease his deficit to 36 seconds, followed by Samuelsson on 44 seconds, both of whom were faultless in the last shooting round, as the only two of the chasing group. The rest of the field followed on more than a minute, making the battle for gold pretty decided.

In the last lap to the finish, the battle for silver and bronze was on. Benedikt Doll was slightly faster than Sebastian Samuelsson after the last shooting round, but the difference was less than 2 seconds. The rest of the field followed on more than 20 seconds on Samuelsson, a difference that was barely possible to bridge in 2 kilometres. Samuelsson looked to be the better climber, which proved most valuable with the many hills that needed to be overcome, and with 500 metres to go, Fourcade took it slower, with Doll and Samuelsson following on 24 seconds in their furious battle, the difference between them less than a second. On the last climb, Samuelsson made the attack, overtaking Doll for silver, just before Fourcade finished. Just 12 second behind him, Samuelsson took the silver medal, 3 seconds in front of Doll, who was not able to find the energy for a last big sprint. In the battle for fourth place, Tarjei Boe finished a tenth of a second before Schempp, with Benjamin Weger and Simon Desthieux in his tracks. Peiffer completed the top 8, with Bjoentegaard and Lukas Hofer within 1:30 from Fourcade.

Martin Fourcade won his fifth Olympic medal, and was the first athlete to defend an Olympic pursuit title, after his win in Sochi. Sebastian Samuelsson and Benedikt Doll took their first Olympic medals after finishing fourteenth and sixth in the sprint event, respectively. Tarjei Boe barely missed out on his second Olympic medal in eight years, similar to Simon Schempp, both of whom had won medals in a relay event before.

Result	Athlete	Nationality	Misses	Time
	Martin Fourcade	France	1	32:51.7
	Sebastian Samuelsson	Sweden	1	33:03.7
	Benedikt Doll	Germany	1	33:06.8
4	Tarjei Boe	Norway	3	33:54.3
5	Simon Schempp	Germany	3	33:54.4
6	Benjamin Weger	Switzerland	2	33:54.8
7	Simon Desthieux	France	3	33:55.4
8	Arnd Peiffer	Germany	3	34:05.8
9	Erlend Bjoentegaard	Norway	4	34:18.0
10	Lukas Hofer	Italy	3	34:24.4
11	Erik Lesser	Germany	2	34:27.6
12	Andrejs Rastorgujevs	Latvia	4	34:29.3
13	Tomas Kaukenas	Lithuania	2	34:31.8
14	Simon Eder	Austria	2	34:33.1
15	Julian Eberhard	Austria	6	34:36.9
16	Dominik Windisch	Italy	5	34:57.9
17	Tim Burke	United States	2	35:11.3
18	Jesper Nelin	Sweden	4	35:15.5
19	Antonin Guigonnat	France	5	35:27.9
20	Emil Hegle Svendsen	Norway	5	35:33.2
21	Johannes Thingnes Boe	Norway	6	35:42.7
22	Timofei Lapshin	South Korea	4	35:50.7
23	Michael Roesch	Belgium	1	35:55.1
24	Klemen Bauer	Slovenia	6	35:55.9
25	Tero Seppala	Finland	5	36:09.9
26	Dominik Landertinger	Austria	5	36:22.2
27	Martin Otcenas	Slovakia	3	36:22.5
28	Serafin Wiestner	Switzerland	6	36:37.0
29	Fredrik Lindstroem	Sweden	5	36:41.5
30	Michal Krcmar	Czech Republic	7	36:41.6
31	Matej Kazar	Slovakia	5	36:42.4
32	Lowell Bailey	United States	5	36:43.3
33	Anton Smolski	Belarus	3	36:44.1
34	Dmytro Pidruchnyi	Ukraine	4	36:53.2
35	Olli Hiidensali	Finland	7	37:03.9
36	Vladimir Chepelin	Belarus	6	37:04.6
37	Sergey Bocharnikov	Belarus	6	37:15.6
38	Artem Pryma	Ukraine	6	37:16.3
39	Giuseppe Montello	Italy	3	37:21.7
40	Anton Babikov	Olympic Athletes from Russia	4	37:21.8
41	Kalev Ermits	Estonia	6	37:43.0
42	Peppe Femling	Sweden	5	37:45.8
43	Vytautas Strolia	Lithuania	4	37:47.3
44	Quentin Fillon Maillet	France	7	37:57.2
45	Krasimir Anev	Bulgaria	5	37:57.9
46	Vladimir Iliev	Bulgaria	7	38:08.7
47	Jakov Fak	Slovenia	6	38:10.4
48	Thomas Bormolini	Italy	6	38:10.7
49	Sergii Semenov	Ukraine	5	38:23.7
50	Leif Nordgren	United States	5	38:40.4
51	Ondrej Moravec	Czech Republic	8	38:45.9
52	Roman Yeremin	Kazakhstan	8	38:51.1
53	Roland Lessing	Estonia	7	38:54.4
54	Nathan Smith	Canada	4	38:58.2
55	Tuomas Gronman	Finland	6	38:58.9
56	Grzegorz Guzik	Poland	6	39:07.3
57	Florent Claude	Belgium	4	39:22.7
58	Carnel Puchianu	Romania	5	39:37.6
59	Miha Dovzan	Slovenia	7	40:13.2
60	Anton Sinapov	Bulgaria	8	40:49.1