Norway's "Lægreid" Claims Olympic Biathlon Title With Breakthrough Victory!
Norway's Sturla Holm Laegreid reacts at the shooting range in the Men's 15 km Mass Start biathlon at the Anterselva Biathlon Arena during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games. Hendrik Schmidt/dpa Norway's Sturla Holm Lægreid destroyed the field en route to a third straight individual victory in the biathlon World Cup on Saturday in Estonia. Lægreid hit 19 of 20 targets en route to victory in a 12.
5-kilometres pursuit in sunny but windy Otepää. He finished a massive 2 minutes 33. 4 seconds ahead of Frenchman Emilien Jacquelin and 2:46.
7 clear of third-placed Norwegian Martin Uldal. Jacquelin and Uldal had five penalty laps each. Reigning overall World Cup champion Lægreid has won the last three races and finished on the podium in eight straight individual races and 10 in a row overall, including relays.
They include pursuit, mass start and relay silver plus sprint and 20km bronze at last month's Olympics. Eric Perrot of France was 11th and saw his lead in the pursuit World Cup over Swede Sebastian Samuelsson, who was fifth, trimmed to 23 points with one race left. Perrot leads the overall standings 244 points ahead of Samuelsson with three races left.
The women's pursuit was scheduled for later Saturday.