By Philip O’Connor
ZHANGJIAKOU, China (Reuters) -Denise Herrmann held her nerve on the shooting range to win gold for Germany in a thrilling women’s 15km pursuit race at the Beijing Olympics on Monday, with Anais Chevalier-Bouchet of France taking silver and Norway’s Marte Olsbu Roieseland bronze.
With each missed shot adding a minute to the total time, there was little margin for error, but the swirling winds from recent days had died down, making it easier to hit the target and turning the competition into an epic battle of nerves.
Roieseland got proceedings underway in freezing temperatures, with the rest of the athletes starting at 30-second intervals as the sun began to set over the National Biathlon Centre in Zhangjiakou.
Herrmann was perfect at her first standing shoot before a later miss dented her hopes, but a wayward shot by Sweden’s Elvira Oeberg allowed the German to retake the lead.
Those nerves spread to the chasing pack and no-one was able to match the pinpoint shooting and speedy skiing of the 33-year-old German as she secured gold in a time of 44:12:7.
Her compatriot, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach, watched from the stands.
“I’m really proud of this performance and really proud of the team behind me, it’s years of work and it paid off today,” said Herrmann, who won bronze as a cross-country skier at the Sochi Olympics.
“I was super relaxed, and I’m so proud that I did this race in this traditional biathlon competition.”
Norway’s Roieseland skied solidly throughout but missed her last standing shot and it was to prove an expensive mistake, as Herrmann hit all five in a perfect series, leaving her to blaze away from the range with a commanding lead.
Chevalier-Bouchet skied superbly on the last leg to get ahead of the Norwegian, who won gold in Saturday’s mixed relay, and claim second place by a margin of 5.9 seconds.
“Honestly, I’m very happy for her (Herrmann) because the beginning of the season was very hard for her I think,” Chevalier-Bouchet told Reuters. It was her second silver of the Games, following her team’s second place in the relay.
“I’m very happy about my performance. I was very focused. And since this morning, I felt that something could happen because I was in a good mood.”
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor, editing by Ed Osmond and Andrew Cawthorne)
