Bjoerndalen leads Norway to gold in biathlon relay
Canadian foursome finishes 10th in men's 4x7.5-kilometre event
Last Updated: Friday, February 26, 2010 | 8:37 PM ET
By Doug Harrison, CBC Sports
A jubilant Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway crosses the finish line first in the men's biathlon 4x7.5-km relay at the Winter Olympics. (Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press)It was only fitting that Ole Einar Bjoerndalen put the finishing touches on Norway's 300th medal in Winter Olympics history.
Holding the Norwegian flag in his right hand, the top-ranked biathlete on the World Cup scene crossed the finish line first in 20 minutes 24.4 seconds in the men's 4x7.5-kilometre relay on Friday.
"I'm really satisfied with my race," Bjoerndalen said. "It was perfect."
Norway's time of one hour 21 minutes 38.1 seconds beat Austria by 38.6 seconds (1:22:16.7) and Russia by 38.8 seconds (1:22:16.9) in a heavy snow at Whistler Olympic Park.
The Canadian foursome of Robin Clegg of Edmonton, Marc-Andre Bedard of Valcartier, Que., Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., and Jean-Philippe Le Guellec of Quebec City placed 10th in the 19-country field.
They were 13th at the last World Cup relay before the Olympics.
It was the 20th medal of these Games for the Norwegians, who finished fifth in the men's relay at the 2006 Torino Games.
It was also the 11th medal and sixth gold in four Olympics for the 36-year-old Bjoerndalen, who avenged his 27th-place finish in the 15-km mass start on Sunday.
Bjoerndalen has said he would compete at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in hopes of matching the Winter Games record of 12 medals held by Norwegian cross-country skier Bjorn Daehlie.
Svendsen regains lead
Bjoerndalen started the fourth and final leg with a 2-10ths of a second lead over Austria's Christoph Sumann. It became a 12.4-second lead over Russia's Evgeny Ustyugov after Bjoerndalen hit all five of his targets from the prone position (he went 10-for-10 on the day) while Sumann struggled at the range and trailed by 39 seconds.
Rising star Emil Hegle Svendsen had given Norway the lead in the third leg, lost it coming out of the second shooting stage, only to regain it before the final exchange.
Ivan Tcherezov of Russia, the 2006 Olympic silver medallist, pulled away from Austria's Simon Eder late in the opening leg but was overtaken by a determined Bedard, who gave Canada a short-lived lead entering the prone (first) shooting stage of the second leg.
Bedard missed two of five targets and stood ninth after leaving the shooting range. He worked his way back to seventh and 45.6 seconds off the pace by the second exchange, but Le Guellec couldn't bring the Canadians any closer in the anchor leg.
Norway's Tarjei Boe trailed Russia's Anton Shipulin by 8.2 seconds coming out of stage two of shooting in the second leg, but charged ahead and quickly opened up a 3.1-second advantage he didn't surrender.
Halvard Hanevold started the race for the Norwegians and posted a team-best time of 20:15.6.
