The men's relay of Biathlon 2018 during the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 23 February 2018 in the Alpensia Biathlon Centre. With 18 teams competing, the event was won by the team from Sweden, with Norway taking the silver medal and Germany taking bronze.
Format[]
The competition exists out of each athlete conducting three rounds of 2.5 kilometres, broken up by shooting at five targets. Each athlete has up to three additional shots for each round, and each missed target afterwards causes the athlete to have to conduct an additional round of 150 meters. The team with the fastest time after 4x7.5 kilometres is the winner.
Preview[]
Eighteen teams qualified for the last event of the biathlon program, with Norway as the leader in the current World Cup standings, being represented by Johannes Thingnes Boe and Tarjei Boe. The two-time gold medalist of the individual events Martin Fourcade took part in the team of France, who were not directly favorites, but still belonged among the medal contenders. Sweden and Germany also had plenty of Olympic experience and (former) medals within the teams. Other outsiders included Austria, Italy, and the United States. Russia, the Olympic champions of 2014, were not able to take part in this relay.
Results[]
With a final simultaneous start, the eighteen teams stayed relatively close to each other in the first lap, with teams such as Canada (as Christian Gow) and Slovenia (as Miha Dovzan) marching to the front of the group throughout the first lap. Canada, France, Norway, and Germany remained in front of the group, with Romania lagging a bit behind. Arriving at the prone shooting for the first athletes of each team, similar to the individual events, the German and Canadian teams were quickly finished, with Erik Lesser and Christian Gow, respectively. These teams took a small lead over Krasimir Anev (Bulgaria) and Miha Dovzan (Slovenia), with another six teams within 10 seconds. Most teams remained faultless at the first round of shooting (bar up to three additional shots), except for Serafin Wiestner, who missed twice for the Swiss team.
Despite a narrow lead of the German and Candian teams going into the second lap, the Czech skier Ondrej Moravec closed the gap, with the three athletes moving towards the second round of shooting. Shooting from a standing position proved much more difficult than shooting prone, with many skiers requiring additional shots to complete their set. Germany retained their lead, but now in a group with Slovakia (Matej Kazar) and Norway (Lars Helge Birkeland), and followed by Ukraine (Artem Pryma) and Belarus (Anton Smolski). The other teams followed on more than 10 seconds, but most teams still remained without any penalty rounds, except for France (Simon Desthieux), who missed twice, and Bulgaria (Krasimir Anev), who missed once.
As the final lap before the handover to the second athletes, Lesser raced away from Pryma and Smolski, who went into the third lap right behind him. However, many changes happened in the last lap of the first leg, with Lesser handing over to Benedikt Doll first, followed by Slovakia 18 seconds later, and Ukraine another 6 seconds later. Behind Pryma, a group of a few teams were close behind, including Norway, Sweden, Belarus, Czech Republic, and Austria, with Canada and the United States also within a minute of Germany. Pre-event medal contenders such as Italy and France were already almost 2 minutes behind.
Continuing the skiing section with the first lap of the second leg, Doll retained the lead that was created by Lesser. Behind Doll, a group of 5 athletes established itself at around 25 seconds, with other teams 10 seconds behind. The German arrived first at the prone shooting round, and finished without missing, right when his first chaser Tarjei Boe (Norway) arrived at his shooting pad. With many of the chasing teams requiring additional shots, the lead of Doll on Ukraine (Sergii Semenov), Austria (Simon Eder), and Sweden (Jesper Nelin) was over 35 seconds, the last one recovering from requiring an additional reload. Raman Yaliotnau and Michal Slesinglr, who represented Ukraine and the Czech Republic, lost time by initially missing one of their shots.
Midway through the second leg, Doll had over 40 seconds on Nelin, Eder, Semenov, and Yaliotnau, but Tarjei Boe and Slesingr were also not far behind. Coming up to the second round of shooting, Semenov had to let the other five skiers go, especially when Jesper Nelin accelerated. Once again, Germany arrived first at the shooting range, but contrary to his first round, Doll missed five shots and had to give away the lead to Slesingr, who shot standing without mistakes. Eder required an additional shot and followed Slesingr on less than 10 seconds, while Nelin required three additional shots, another 10 seconds behind. Tarjei Boe followed on 30 seconds from Slesingr, followed by Doll, Sean Doherty (United States), Scott Gow (Canada), and Semenov.
In the last lap before the halfway point, Slesingr retained a small lead of 12 seconds over Eder, but Nelin crept closer. The nearest chaser behind Nelin was Tarjei Boe, who already followed on more than 30 seconds. Slesingr did hand over in first place to Jaroslav Soukup, while Nelin and Eder completed their leg almost level, handing over to Sebastian Samuelsson and Julian Eberhard, respectively. Norway and Germany followed on more than 30 seconds, with the United States over another 20 seconds behind.
In the first lap with the "fresh" athletes, Soukup lost quite some time on Eberhard, Samuelsson, and Johannes Thingnes Boe (Norway), leaving only 10 seconds at arrival at the shooting range. Missing a single shot, his lead to Johannes Thingnes Boe became smaller and smaller, leaving only 3 seconds after leaving the shooting range. Julian Eberhard and Samuelsson also missed a shot and retained their deficit of 10 seconds. Arnd Peiffer, who was the third athlete of the German team, followed on less than 20 seconds, with Tim Burke over 50 seconds behind.
Johannes Thingnes Boe quickly took over the lead from Soukup, who was now in the same group as Julian Eberhard and Samuelsson, but dropped back fast. Hoping to retain the lead, Johannes Thingnes Boe missed his last shot, while Samuelsson made no mistakes, leaving the shooting range at almost level terms. Peiffer also made no misses, but still had to leave a 10-second gap to the leaders. Julian Eberhard followed on more than a minute from Peiffer, having missed five times, followed by Soukup on another 10 seconds, having missed four. Meanwhile, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, and Bulgaria were lapped and were taken out of the race.
The last lap of the third leg showed a close battle between Sweden and Norway, their roles being taken over by Fredrik Lindstroem and Emil Hegle Svendsen. Germany, in the form of Simon Schempp, was only 15 seconds behind, with any mistake of the leaders being costly. Austria and the United States seemed to be in a race for fourth place, with only 15 seconds between them.
Schempp showed his big quality, chipping off from the lead of the two teams in front. In the heat of the race between the two, both Sweden and Norway were able to shoot prone without mistakes, while Schempp had to recover from three misses. Noticing Schempp still at the shooting range, Dominik Landertinger rekindled his hope on a medal, especially when he did not make any mistakes in the prone round.
The penultimate lap remained a fierce battle between Lindstroem and Svendsen, who would determine the gold and silver medals. Schempp followed on close to a minute and was almost certain of the bronze medal, with Landertinger following on another 50 seconds. The last shooting round would be vital in the direct placement, especially being a round of shooting while standing. Both athletes missed their first shot, but where Lindstroem was able to recover, Svendsen missed three more times. Schempp, who could be back in contention while Svendsen was enduring his penalty round, also missed four times. This left Lindstroem with a lead of 40 seconds over Svendsen and almost 2 minutes over Schempp with a single lap to go.
In the last lap, most placements were already decided. This also counted for Sweden, which extended their lead from 40 seconds to 55 seconds in a single lap, and Norway, which would finish second. Germany finished third over 2 minutes behind Sweden, while Austria finished another 50 seconds behind them. France was still able to get in the top 5 after a bad start, overtaking the United States. The Czech Republic and Belarus completed the top 8.
Sweden won the men's relay for the first time in Olympic history, and won the first men's gold medal at the biathlon events in Pyeongchang, after Hanna Oeberg won the women's 15 km individual. Norway completed their trifecta on the men's side, after Johannes Thingnes Boe won the 20 km and Emil Hegle Svendsen finished third in the mass start. Germany finished on the podium for the fourth time in five men's events, only missing out on the 20 km individual. Austria and France had also already won medals in biathlon in 2018, but finished just outside of the podium.
| Rank | Nation | Penalty | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 Sweden |
0 | 1:15:16.5 |
 |
 Norway |
1 | 1:16:12.0 |
 |
 Germany |
3 | 1:17:23.6 |
| 4 |  Austria |
2 | 1:18:09.0 |
| 5 |  France |
3 | 1:18:43.1 |
| 6 |  United States |
2 | 1:19:06.7 |
| 7 |  Czech Republic |
2 | 1:19:23.6 |
| 8 |  Belarus |
3 | 1:20:06.0 |
| 9 |  Ukraine |
2 | 1:20:17.3 |
| 10 |  Slovenia |
1 | 1:20:17.3 |
| 11 |  Canada |
1 | 1:20:56.8 |
| 12 |  Italy |
4 | 1:21:35.6 |
| 13 |  Estonia |
3 | 1:22:26.4 |
| 14 |  Romania |
2 | 1:22:51.1 |
| 15 |  Switzerland |
5 | 1:23:06.1 |
| 16 |  Bulgaria |
3 | LAP |
| 17 |  Kazakhstan |
2 | LAP |
| 18 |  Slovakia |
5 | LAP |
| 2018 Winter Olympic Games | |
|---|---|
| Biathlon 2018 | |
| ← 2014 | 2022 → |
| Men | Women |
| 20 km | 15 km |
| Sprint | Sprint |
| Pursuit | Pursuit |
| Mass start | Mass start |
| Relay | Relay |
| Mixed | |
| Relay | |