Biathlon at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games:

This event, held on the first morning of competition, produced the first surprise of the 2010 Games when the Slovakian biathlete Anastasia Kuzmina, having started slowly, won the gold medal in a time of 19:55.6.

With many of the favourites missing targets, Kuzmina missed only one and won ahead of Germany’s Magdalena Neuner, a biathlete who came in to the Games with a rich vein of form, and early leader Marie Dorin of France who took silver and bronze some 1.5 seconds and 10.9 seconds respectively behind Kuzmina.

Although the Russian born Kuzmina had won a medal at the 2009 World Championship she had never won a race on the World Cup circuit and her preparation had been hampered by an accident in which she broke two bones in her hand a month before the Games began.

This was only her second year competing in Slovakian colours after she had moved to the country to train with her husband, the Israeli cross-country skier Daniel Kuzmin. Her brother, Anton Shipulin, would later add to the family medal haul by winning a bronze medal in the men’s relay. This was Slovakia’s first gold medal at a Winter Olympics although Slovak Ondrej Nepela was an Olympic champion in 1972 representing Czechoslovakia.

World champion Kati Wilhelm of Germany had a poor day at the rifle range and could only finish 30th whilst World Cup leader Helena Jonsson prefaced a disappointing Olympic by placing 12th.