Biathlon at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games:

This was the first biathlon event at the 2002 Winter Olympics. The first of the favorites to go off was Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen in the 26th slot. Just two days earlier, he had placed fifth in the 30 km cross-country race. He missed two targets but his skiing brought him home in an adjusted time of 51:03.3. His ski time of 49:03.3 would easily be the fastest of the event, and this performance would hold up for the gold medal. The silver medal went to Germany’s Frank Luck who was competing in his fourth Winter Olympics and had won the silver medal in the event in 1994. Luck had only the 14th fastest ski time but was clean in his shooting to win the silver. It was his fourth Olympic medal, added to two relay golds from 1994 and 1998.

For Bjørndalen, this was his third Olympics. He had won a gold in the sprint and silver in the relay in 1998, but Salt Lake City was his party. In the end, he would leave Utah with four gold medals, winning all three individual biathlon events, and leading Norway to the gold medal in the relay. Over the next decade Bjørndalen would confirm his status as the greatest ever biathlete, winning over 110 World Cup races, and 14 gold medals at the World Championships through 2009. At the 2005 and 2009 World Championships, he duplicated his Salt Lake City performance, sort of, winning gold medals in four events, although by then a fifth event, the mass start race, had been added to the program. Bjørndalen is married to Italian biathlete Nathalie Santer and his brother, [Dag], also competed in the 1998 Olympic biathlon events.