Quentin Fillon Maillet takes sprint gold, Christiansen and Laegreid shock Jacquelin

Most of the top contenders started with bib numbers in the 40s and later, so for quite a while Olli Hiidensalo led the race after shooting clean.

However, once the favorites entered the course, it became clear that the Finn’s time would struggle to remain even in the top ten.

Quentin Fillon Maillet immediately set a strong benchmark. After the first shooting, he had built a significant advantage over the rest of the field. Right behind him was Emilien Jacquelin — and he was even faster, by seven seconds. Hartweg, Samuelsson and Hofer could not match his pace and were already 15 seconds down. Perrot and Ponsiluoma, who were skiing at a similar tempo, each missed once and had to serve a penalty loop.

At the second shooting, both Jacquelin and Fillon Maillet cleared all five targets again, with Jacquelin leaving the range six seconds ahead of his teammate.

But then Quentin produced what seemed at the time to be a phenomenal final lap, beating Jacquelin by 16 seconds. Meanwhile, Emilien appeared to fade badly in the final 10–15 meters of the finishing straight — a crucial detail.

Perrot and Ponsiluoma each added another miss. Despite skiing at a pace comparable to the leaders, they were no longer in medal contention. Sebastian Samuelsson briefly moved into third place — until the Norwegians entered the fight.

All the Vikings started close together with bib numbers 56 to 64.

Christiansen and Laegreid shot clean at both stages, while Botn and Dale each missed once. Dale was the fastest on the course, but finished alongside Ponsiluoma in sixth place.

Christiansen and Laegreid trailed the leader by 17 and 21 seconds respectively and were battling for bronze. It then became clear that it was not Fillon Maillet who had been super-fast on the final lap — it was Jacquelin who had completely run out of energy.

Both Norwegians overtook Jacquelin, with Sturla Laegreid squeezing into third place by just 0.2 seconds. One can only wonder what might have happened if Jacquelin had pushed harder over the final meters — or not lost time removing his headband and goggles.

The Olympic sprint turned out to be incredibly strong. Eric Perrot, who posted the ninth-best time, finished more than a minute behind. Tommaso Giacomel, in 22nd place, trailed by 1:43.

It seems unlikely that anyone starting behind Eric Perrot will be able to fight for medals in the pursuit.

		Click on the flag to select team	Shooting	-	Time
1		Quentin Fillon Maillet	0+0	0	22:53.1
2		Vetle Sjastad Christiansen	0+0	0	+13.7
3		Sturla Holm Laegreid	0+0	0	+15.9
4		Emilien Jacquelin	0+0	0	+16.1
5		Sebastian Samuelsson	0+0	0	+25.0
6		Johannes Dale-skjevdal	0+2	2	+43.0
7		Martin Ponsiluoma	1+1	2	+46.7
8		Johan-Olav Botn	1+0	1	+58.2
9		Eric Perrot	1+1	2	+1:02.1
10		Philipp Horn	0+1	1	+1:09.2
11		Olli Hiidensalo	0+0	0	+1:09.3
12		Campbell Wright	1+0	1	+1:10.0
13		Lukas Hofer	0+1	1	+1:22.1
14		Joscha Burkhalter	0+0	0	+1:22.3
15		Sebastian Stalder	0+0	0	+1:33.7
16		Nicola Romanin	0+0	0	+1:34.4
17		Niklas Hartweg	0+2	2	+1:38.9
18		Tero Seppala	1+1	2	+1:41.0
19		David Zobel	0+0	0	+1:41.8
20		Vitezslav Hornig	1+0	1	+1:42.1
21		Tuomas Harjula	0+1	1	+1:43.3
22		Tommaso Giacomel	2+1	3	+1:43.4
23		Justus Strelow	0+1	1	+1:46.4
24		Vitalii Mandzyn	0+1	1	+1:47.4
25		Jakov Fak	0+1	1	+1:52.1
26		Philipp Nawrath	2+1	3	+1:52.9
27		Dmytro Pidruchnuy	1+1	2	+1:54.8
28		Michal Krcmar	0+2	2	+1:56.8
29		Jan Gunka	1+0	1	+1:57.4
30		Andrejs Rastorgujevs	0+1	1	+2:03.8
31		Runnalls Adam	0+1	1	+2:09.4
32		Rihards Lozbers	1+1	2	+2:12.1
33		Tomas Mikyska	1+0	1	+2:12.2
34		Lovro Planko	2+1	3	+2:12.9
35		Anton Vidmar	0+2	2	+2:16.9
36		Miha Dovzan	0+1	1	+2:17.3
37		Grzegorz Galica	0+2	2	+2:17.7
38		Florent Claude	1+1	2	+2:20.8
39		Fabian Muellauer	0+2	2	+2:23.6
40		Otto Invenius	1+3	4	+2:27.0
41		Fabien Claude	2+3	5	+2:30.1
42		Blagoy Todev	1+0	1	+2:30.5
43		Malte Stefansson	2+0	2	+2:30.8
44		Rene Zahkna	0+1	1	+2:33.8
45		Mikulas Karlik	1+3	4	+2:37.1
46		Simon Eder	1+1	2	+2:37.9
47		Paul Schommer	1+0	1	+2:38.2
48		Zachary Connelly	0+4	4	+2:40.4
49		Vytautas Strolia	1+1	2	+2:44.3
49		Patrick Jakob	0+2	2	+2:44.3
51		Vladislav Kireyev	1+1	2	+2:48.5
52		Edgars Mise	0+1	1	+2:49.8
53		Kristo Siimer	0+0	0	+2:50.0
54		Dmitrii Shamaev	1+0	1	+2:50.2
55		Logan Pletz	1+1	2	+2:53.6
56		Konstantin Vasilev	0+4	4	+2:59.2
57		Konrad Badacz	3+0	3	+3:00.2
58		Jakub Borgula	0+1	1	+3:01.9
59		Matija Legovic	1+1	2	+3:05.5
60		Sondre Slettemark	1+1	2	+3:06.4
61		Asset Dyussenov	2+0	2	+3:07.2
62		Elia Zeni	2+1	3	+3:07.3
63		Bogdan Borkovski	1+1	2	+3:12.9
64		Xingyuan Yan	0+2	2	+3:15.7
65		Sean Doherty	1+2	3	+3:19.5
66		Maxime Germain	3+0	3	+3:20.3
67		Coltea	0+2	2	+3:21.8
68		George Buta	1+0	1	+3:22.1
69		Marcin Zawol	3+1	4	+3:22.3
70		Vladimir Iliev	2+2	4	+3:24.7
71		Maksim Fomin	1+1	2	+3:26.4
72		Jesper Nelin	2+3	5	+3:29.9
73		Dominic Unterweger	1+2	3	+3:36.6
74		Jakob Kulbin	2+0	2	+3:37.6
75		Simon Adamov	1+1	2	+3:38.9
76		Jeremy Finello	2+2	4	+3:48.0
77		Renars Birkentals	3+2	5	+3:48.3
78		Pavel Magazeev	1+2	3	+3:50.3
79		Mark-markos Kehva	2+1	3	+3:50.6
80		Jasper Fleming	3+1	4	+3:53.0
81		Jacques Jefferies	1+2	3	+4:09.4
82		Anton Sinapov	0+3	3	+4:11.3
83		Nikita Cigak	2+1	3	+4:11.7
84		Karol Dombrovskij	1+2	3	+4:13.9
85		Thierry Langer	1+2	3	+4:18.2
86		Maksim Makarov	3+0	3	+4:31.7
87		Antonio Flore Raul	0+1	1	+4:43.8
88		Anton Dudchenko	2+1	3	+4:44.5
89		Kresimir Crnkovic	3+2	5	+5:11.4
90		Dujin Choi	3+0	3	+5:12.6