Biathlon 2018/Men's sprint

Men's sprint
General information
Sport	Biathlon 2018
Date	11 February 2018
Competitors	87 athletes
Venue	Alpensia Biathlon Centre
Previous medalists
Gold	Ole Einar Bjoerndalen
Silver	Dominik Landertinger
Bronze	Jaroslav Soukup
Conditions
Temperature	-11°C / 12.2°F
Length	9813 metres
Height	37 metres
Medalists
	Arnd Peiffer
	Michal Krcmar
	Dominik Windisch

The men's sprint of Biathlon 2018 during the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 11 February 2018 in the Alpensia Biathlon Centre. With 87 athletes competing, the event was won by Arnd Peiffer from Germany, with Michal Krcmar from Czech Republic taking the silver medal and Dominik Windisch from Italy taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of three rounds of 3.3 kilometres, broken up by shooting at five targets. The athletes started 30 seconds from each other, each missed target causing an additional round of 150 meters. The competitor with the fastest time after 10 kilometres (or additional rounds) is the winner.

Preview

Eighty-seven athletes qualified for the event, and Johannes Thingnes Boe and Martin Fourcade had dominated the season. Having two World Cup wins in the previous season, Thingnes Boe had a slight edge over Fourcade, who had only one win, despite shooting clean in all World Cups. The only other participant with a sprint win was Johannes' brother Tarjei Boe, though that seemed to be a fluke in the season, his second-best result being a fifth place. There were five other participants who had appeared on the podium in the World Cups, and with those medalists being Erik Lesser, Arnd Peiffer, Emil Hegle Svendsen, Antonin Guigonnat and Jakov Fak, these were medal contenders in the sprint. Other outsiders were reigning world champion Benedikt Doll, Simon Schempp and Julian Eberhard.

Results

The circumstances of this race were tough, with a very low temperature and a hard and constantly changing wind. This could already be noticed on the first lap, where several favorites missed several of their five shots, forcing them to cover a longer distance. Where Jakov Fak and Emil Hegle Svendsen missed once, Frenchman Simon Desthieux and Tarjei Boe missed twice, and the big favorites Martin Fourcade and Johannes Thingnes Boe even missed three times, losing their chance on a medal. After the first shooting round, the lead was taken by Norwegian Erlend Bjoentegaard, with Martin Otcenas only 2 seconds behind him, and the first starter Timofei Lapshin, outsider Simon Schempp, Tomas Kaukenas and Benjamin Weger all within ten seconds, shooting clean. After the first round of shooting, only 29 men were able to shoot without missing.

The second lap would end with shooting while standing, and usually, this is seen as the more difficult version of shooting in biathlon. After the second lap and the second turn shooting, only four men were able to stay faultless, and while Arnd Peiffer and Michal Krcmar were able to climb into medal contention by staying without mistakes, Olli Hiidensalo and Dmytro Pidruchnyi were only able to stay 15th and 14th, respectively. Dominik Windisch and Julian Eberhard were able to climb to third and fourth with only one mistake, staying ahead of the biathletes who missed once, while Timofei Lapshin completed the top 5, also with only one mistake. Bjoentegaard dropped down to eighth place, with two mistakes, while Otcenas dropped down to 57th place, with four misses.

The fastest third lap was run by Desthieux, who was able to gain twelve spots in the ranking, climbing from 24th place to 12th place. Eberhard raced to the second-fastest time of the last lap, consolidating his fourth place, but missing out on a medal by only 0.7 seconds after Windisch was able to hold him off from the bronze medal. Arnd Peiffer was able to defend his leading position, and despite his best efforts, Michal Krcmar was not able to promote his silver medal to a gold one. Bjoentegaard climbed to fifth place with the fifth-fastest time of the last lap, although the difference with number six Benedikt Doll was only 0.2 seconds, while Schempp lost 4 seconds to finish seventh. Martin Fourcade was able to partially compensate for the misses of the prone round, and finished eighth, overtaking Serafin Wiestner and Lukas Hofer, who were able to finish in the top 10. The favorite Johannes Thingnes Boe was only able to get the 31st position after four misses.

Arnd Peiffer made his second Olympic podium, after winning silver in the men's relay in 2014. Michal Krcmar won his first medal, after not even participating at this specific event in Sochi, while Dominik Windisch also earned his first individual podium, after winning a bronze medal in the mixed relay four years prior. Julian Eberhard, who made his Olympic debut, missed the podium on less than a second.

Result	Athlete	Nationality	Misses	Time
	Arnd Peiffer	Germany	0	23:38.8
	Michal Krcmar	Czech Republic	0	23:43.2
	Dominik Windisch	Italy	1	23:46.5
4	Julian Eberhard	Austria	1	23:47.2
5	Erlend Bjoentegaard	Norway	2	23:56.2
6	Benedikt Doll	Germany	1	23:56.4
7	Simon Schempp	Germany	1	24:00.2
8	Martin Fourcade	France	3	24:00.9
9	Serafin Wiestner	Switzerland	1	24:02.3
10	Lukas Hofer	Italy	2	24:09.8
11	Erik Lesser	Germany	1	24:10.7
12	Simon Desthieux	France	2	24:11.1
13	Tarjei Boe	Norway	2	24:12.5
14	Sebastian Samuelsson	Sweden	2	24:12.6
15	Benjamin Weger	Switzerland	1	24:15.5
16	Timofei Lapshin	South Korea	1	24:22.6
17	Tomas Kaukenas	Lithuania	1	24:23.5
18	Emil Hegle Svendsen	Norway	2	24:23.8
19	Olli Hiidensalo	Finland	0	24:26.3
20	Tero Seppala	Finland	1	24:27.3
21	Dmytro Pidruchnyi	Ukraine	0	24:27.5
22	Matej Kazar	Slovakia	1	24:33.7
23	Jakov Fak	Slovenia	2	24:34.2
24	Andrejs Rastorgujevs	Latvia	3	24:34.4
25	Dominik Landertinger	Austria	1	24:36.2
26	Klemen Bauer	Slovenia	2	24:36.4
27	Antonin Guigonnat	France	3	24:37.5
28	Simon Feder	Austria	2	24:42.5
29	Ondrej Moravec	Czech Republic	1	24:46.7
30	Jesper Nelin	Sweden	3	24:46.8
31	Johannes Thingnes Boe	Norway	4	24:51.5
32	Peppe Femling	Sweden	2	24:52.2
33	Lowell Bailey	United States	1	24:54.4
34	Vladimir Chepelin	Belarus	2	25:04.8
35	Anton Smolski	Belarus	1	25:05.9
36	Kalev Ermits	Estonia	2	25:07.2
37	Krasimir Anev	Bulgaria	2	25:08.8
38	Michael Roesch	Belgium	2	25:09.4
39	Fredrik Lindstroem	Sweden	3	25:14.1
40	Artem Pryma	Ukraine	2	25:14.9
41	Roland Lessing	Estonia	2	25:19.7
42	Sergey Bocharnikov	Belarus	2	25:20.9
43	Roman Yeremin	Kazakhstan	2	25:21.9
44	Nathan Smith	Canada	1	25:22.3
45	Tuomas Gronman	Finland	1	25:24.3
46	Sergii Semenov	Ukraine	1	25:24.9
47	Tim Burke	United States	4	25:26.3
48	Quentin Fillon Maillet	France	4	25:28.1
49	Vytautas Strolia	Lithuania	2	25:32.4
50	Giuseppe Montello	Italy	2	25:35.3
51	Thomas Bormolini	Italy	2	25:39.3
52	Martin Otcenas	Slovakia	4	25:39.7
53	Miha Dovzan	Slovenia	2	25:42.2
54	Vladimir Iliev	Bulgaria	4	25:42.7
55	Florent Claude	Belgium	3	25:43.7
56	Anton Sinapov	Bulgaria	3	25:47.9
57	Anton Babikov	Olympic Athletes from Russia	4	25:48.5
58	Leif Nordgren	United States	2	25:49.0
59	Grzegorz Guzik	Poland	2	25:52.2
60	Cornel Puchianu	Romania	1	25:52.7
61	Scott Gow	Canada	4	25:52.8
62	Christian Gow	Canada	3	25:53.5
63	Jeremy Finello	Switzerland	3	25:54.7
64	Mario Dolder	Switzerland	5	25:54.8
65	Sean Doherty	United States	4	25:55.2
66	Oskars Muiznieks	Latvia	2	25:56.3
67	Andrzej Nedza-Kubiniec	Poland	2	25:59.2
68	Remus Faur	Romania	1	26:03.3
69	Michal Slesingr	Czech Republic	4	26:06.0
70	Tomas Hasilla	Slovakia	3	26:10.4
71	Raman Yaliotnau	Belarus	6	26:12.6
72	Mitja Drinovec	Slovenia	3	26:13.7
73	Adam Vaclavik	Czech Republic	4	26:15.4
74	Simon Bartko	Slovakia	5	26:18.4
75	Rene Zahkna	Estonia	3	26:19.9
76	Kauri Koiv	Estonia	3	26:23.3
77	Tobias Eberhard	Austria	5	26:24.3
78	Volodymyr Siemakov	Ukraine	3	26:31.7
79	Vladislav Vitenko	Kazakhstan	4	26:32.7
80	Vassily Podkorytov	Kazakhstan	1	26:34.7
81	Dimitar Gerdzhikov	Bulgaria	4	26:47.9
82	Brendan Green	Canada	3	26:48.0
83	Matvey Eliseev	Olympic Athletes from Russia	5	26:59.3
84	Mikito Tachizaki	Japan	3	27:27.1
85	Maxim Braun	Kazakhstan	4	27:46.7
86	Gheorghe Pop	Romania	5	28:04.4
87	Marius Ungureanu	Romania	4	28:59.1