Winter Olympics 2022 - Norway steal men’s biathlon relay gold after ROC fall apart in final shoot

The Russian Olympic Committee threw away a huge lead in the final leg of the men’s biathlon relay to hand gold to Norway at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Eduard Latypov was wasteful in the final standing shoot, blowing a lead of nearly a minute over Norway while Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen was faultless with the rifle to surge the Norwegians into the lead. France had been 44.8 seconds behind Latypov but also came out ahead after the final shoot to claim silver as the Russians settled for bronze.

Johannes Thingnes Boe skied the third leg for Norway and earned his third gold medal at Beijing 2022, while France's Quentin Fillon Maillet now has five medals from five events — two golds and three silvers. Ad/> Sweden went into the event as defending champions, featuring half of their 2018 relay gold medallists — Peppe Femling and Jesper Nelin — in their line up, but ended up fifth. Beijing 2022Tandrevold heading home from Beijing after collapsing in biathlonA DAY AGO It was the Russian Olympic Committee that began strongest, with Said Karimulla Khalili coming into the first exchange in 19:40.9, just 0.9 seconds ahead of Belarus, with France also in contention.

Errors from Sturla Holm Laegreird at the standing shoot meant Norway were trailing by 40.3 seconds after the first leg. The second leg was when the ROC started to motor, with rivals behind picking up too many penalties on the standing shoot. Meanwhile, Alexander Loginov went through his run on the course quicker than Khalili.

Belarus dropped down to third, with Emilien Jacquelin bringing France into silver medal position. The lead at the handover was 36.2 seconds and the advantage was only going to grow over the third leg, as ROC took total control. Beijing 2022