Olympics, Dorothea Wierer bronze in the biathlon sprint

The blue, impeccable at the shooting range, wins the first individual medal at the Games and enriches a prestigious palmares

by our correspondent Paolo Marabini

February 11th
– BEIJING–

The medal he had been chasing for eight years has finally arrived. It is another bronze, the color of the two medals won with the mixed relay, first in Sochi and then in PyeongChang, but Dorothea Wierer is satisfied, indeed, for a third Olympic place in the sprint that completes her collection of heavy podiums, with view now on the chase race and then on the mass start, or two other opportunities to go even higher. She also took the gold, already hers in three world races.

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Flawless at the shooting range

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In the sprint over the 7.5 km, the 31-year-old from Rasun was flawless in the two stops at the shooting range: free from errors – and fast in the executions – in both stops, she was unable to keep up with the unleashed Mars Olsblu Roeiseland, who he left at 37 ”2, and another true cross-country skier like Elvira Oeberg, silver for 6” 3. The Norwegian and the Swedish, after all, are two of the strongest biathletes ever on skis in the world and on the occasion – in turn without errors at the shooting range – they reaffirmed it. But the bronze is very heavy, because it is the best result in history for the blue women’s sector. For the Italian biathlon it is the seventh Olympic medal: the sixth bronze, with Pieralberto Carrara’s silver in Nagano ’98 in the 20 km which still remains the best result ever.

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Continuous progression

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Doro had been revealed since the youth categories, with two gold medals and two silver medals at the Junior World Championships, and then began the string of successes in the major category on December 4, 2015, with the first affirmation in the World Cup, in the individual of Ostersund. From there she her other 12 individual centers and 5 in relay. But, above all, the first world podium (silver in the pursuit at the World Championships in Oslo in 2016) and, to follow, the world title in the mass start again in Ostersund, in 2019, and the hat-trick on the podium at the 2020 World Cup in his Antholz: gold in the individual and in pursuit, silver in the mass start. All topped off with two absolute World Cups and 4 specialty cups. At the Games she instead boasted only two sixth places as best individual placements.

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