Johan Olav Botn is the Olympic champion in the individual race

Not the fastest skiing performance, but four clean shooting stages and a first gold medal for the Norwegian Johan Olav Botn. Only this season has he fully secured a place in the main team, and without the illness earlier in the winter, he could very well have been the overall World Cup leader.

Eric Perrot started in very powerful fashion. Already after the first shooting, he had built a huge advantage: Laegreid and Ponsiluoma were 10 seconds behind, while Botn and Samuelsson were more than 20 seconds back. Only Quentin Fillon Maillet matched Perrot’s pace on the opening lap, but too many misses kept Quentin out of the fight for victory.

Perrot did not slow down, and only a mistake on the standing shooting slightly worsened his position. Martin Ponsiluoma and Sturla Laegreid moved into the lead, this duo holding a comfortable 40-second advantage over the Frenchman. Botn was third at that split. Samuelsson and Hofer, despite clean shooting, were already more than 30 seconds behind the leaders.

By the third shooting, it became clear that Eric Perrot was significantly faster on the skis than his rivals. Only Johan Botn was ahead, with a 20-second margin. Samuelsson, despite perfect shooting, was now losing time to the Frenchman. Laegreid, like Perrot, missed once and trailed Perrot by 15 seconds. Ponsiluoma missed twice and saw his medal hopes disappear.

At the final shooting, Eric Perrot went clean, and it became obvious that only Johan Olav Botn could challenge him for gold. The Norwegian kept the suspense alive: Perrot was just 11 seconds behind, and it was unclear whether Botn could hold on. But Botn dug deep and managed to stay ahead of Perrot on the final lap.

Sturla Laegreid produced a clean final shooting as well, but lost even more time to the Frenchman and was unable to catch him.

Sebastian Samuelsson struggled on the final shooting, missed twice and finished outside the medals. It was also a difficult race for Tommaso Giacomel, who accumulated three misses.

For a long time, the top position was held by Finland’s Olli Hiidensalo, with a perfect 20 out of 20 shooting performance. Unfortunately, the sensation did not materialize: the Finn lost too much time on the track and finished fourth, just as he did one year ago at the World Championships in Lenzerheide.

Quentin Fillon Maillet and Johannes Dale were the fastest athletes on the course, but both had four misses. It was almost a miracle that they still managed to finish inside the top ten.

		Click on the flag to select team	Shooting	-	Time
1		Johan-Olav Botn	0+0+0+0	0	51:31.5
2		Eric Perrot	0+1+0+0	1	+14.8
3		Holm Laegreid Sturla	0+0+1+0	1	+48.3
4		Olli Hiidensalo	0+0+0+0	0	+1:29.7
5		Philipp Nawrath	1+0+0+0	1	+1:31.5
6		Tommaso Giacomel	1+1+0+1	3	+2:27.5
7		Sebastian Samuelsson	0+0+0+2	2	+2:29.3
8		Quentin Fillon Maillet	1+2+0+1	4	+2:49.4
9		Martin Ponsiluoma	0+0+2+1	3	+2:54.7
10		Johannes Dale-skjevdal	2+0+0+2	4	+3:00.7
11		Otto Invenius	1+0+0+0	1	+3:08.0
12		Jesper Nelin	1+0+0+1	2	+3:13.8
13		Martin Uldal	1+0+1+1	3	+3:16.5
14		Patrick Braunhofer	0+0+1+0	1	+3:30.2
15		Tuomas Harjula	0+1+0+0	1	+3:43.5
16		Lukas Hofer	0+0+1+2	3	+4:01.0
17		Fabien Claude	2+1+0+1	4	+4:15.4
18		Dmytro Pidruchnuy	0+3+0+0	3	+4:38.9
19		Vytautas Strolia	0+0+0+1	1	+4:43.5
20		Miha Dovzan	0+0+0+1	1	+4:56.5
21		David Zobel	0+2+0+0	2	+5:00.3
22		Blagoy Todev	1+0+0+1	2	+5:03.4
23		Lucas Fratzscher	0+0+1+1	2	+5:07.2
24		Patrick Jakob	1+0+1+0	2	+5:08.5
25		Elia Zeni	1+2+0+0	3	+5:15.0
26		Vitezslav Hornig	1+0+1+0	2	+5:15.5
27		Campbell Wright	1+1+0+0	2	+5:22.4
28		Vitalii Mandzyn	0+1+1+2	4	+5:23.5
29		Jakov Fak	1+0+1+0	2	+5:24.0
30		Karol Dombrovskij	0+1+0+0	1	+5:28.5
31		Renars Birkentals	1+1+0+0	2	+5:29.2
32		Dominic Unterweger	1+0+1+0	2	+5:37.0
33		Grzegorz Galica	1+0+2+0	3	+5:38.7
34		Simon Eder	0+0+1+1	2	+5:45.4
35		Anton Dudchenko	0+1+0+0	1	+5:50.2
36		Joscha Burkhalter	1+1+0+1	3	+5:50.5
37		Victor Brandt	1+0+0+3	4	+6:06.8
38		Michal Krcmar	1+2+1+0	4	+6:13.9
39		George Buta	1+0+0+0	1	+6:15.3
40		Philipp Horn	2+1+1+2	6	+6:19.3
41		Andrejs Rastorgujevs	1+0+1+1	3	+6:19.9
42		Rene Zahkna	0+1+0+1	2	+6:24.0
43		Marcin Zawol	0+1+1+1	3	+6:27.4
44		Paul Schommer	0+0+0+1	1	+6:28.9
45		Pavel Magazeev	1+1+0+1	3	+6:30.8
46		Florent Claude	1+2+0+0	3	+6:32.7
47		Mark-markos Kehva	0+0+0+1	1	+6:37.8
48		Lovro Planko	0+1+1+2	4	+6:45.4
49		Konrad Badacz	2+1+1+0	4	+6:48.2
50		Nikita Cigak	0+1+0+0	1	+6:50.9
51		Tero Seppala	2+1+2+1	6	+6:51.0
52		Thierry Langer	0+1+2+0	3	+7:04.3
53		Vladislav Kireyev	1+2+0+0	3	+7:17.9
54		Coltea	1+1+0+1	3	+7:19.2
55		Emilien Jacquelin	2+1+0+3	6	+7:27.9
56		Maksim Fomin	0+1+1+1	3	+7:28.5
57		Xingyuan Yan	0+0+2+1	3	+7:30.0
58		Kristo Siimer	1+1+1+0	3	+7:38.1
59		Niklas Hartweg	1+0+1+4	6	+7:40.0
60		Sebastian Stalder	0+0+1+2	3	+7:46.8
61		Jan Gunka	1+0+2+1	4	+7:53.7
62		Sondre Slettemark	0+2+0+1	3	+8:13.0
63		Jeremy Finello	1+2+1+3	7	+8:13.4
64		Runnalls Adam	1+2+1+1	5	+8:33.0
65		Taras Lesyuk	1+2+0+1	4	+9:00.0
66		Zachary Connelly	1+3+1+1	6	+9:07.6
67		Maxime Germain	0+2+0+1	3	+9:13.4
68		Mikulas Karlik	0+1+1+3	5	+9:17.1
69		Anton Sinapov	1+1+0+2	4	+9:18.6
70		Dmitrii Shamaev	1+0+0+1	2	+9:27.7
71		Anton Vidmar	2+2+0+3	7	+9:35.4
72		Matija Legovic	1+1+1+3	6	+9:39.9
73		Fabian Muellauer	1+2+3+1	7	+9:45.9
74		Asset Dyussenov	2+2+1+0	5	+9:48.7
75		Vladimir Iliev	3+2+3+1	9	+9:51.3
76		Kresimir Crnkovic	0+1+1+2	4	+10:00.8
77		Logan Pletz	2+1+1+1	5	+10:11.4
78		Konstantin Vasilev	3+2+3+1	9	+10:23.6
79		Jacques Jefferies	1+1+1+1	4	+10:39.5
80		Sean Doherty	1+0+3+2	6	+10:45.3
81		Petr Hak	2+2+1+2	7	+11:16.8
82		Simon Adamov	0+4+1+2	7	+11:29.9
83		Edgars Mise	1+1+1+3	6	+13:19.5
84		Maksim Makarov	1+1+1+2	5	+13:22.9
85		Dujin Choi	2+1+2+0	5	+13:36.1
86		Jasper Fleming	1+3+2+2	8	+13:44.0
87		Jakob Kulbin	2+2+3+0	7	+13:45.8
88		Rihards Lozbers	3+4+1+0	8	+13:54.2
89		Antonio Flore Raul	1+1+0+2	4	+14:53.6