Biathlon at the 1980 Winter Games: Previous Winter Games ▪ Next Winter Games
Host City: Lake Placid, United States
Venue(s): Mt. Van Hoevenberg Recreation Area, Lake Placid
Date Started: February 22, 1980
Date Finished: February 22, 1980
Format: Eight shots for each group of five targets. Penalty loop (150 metres) skied for each missed target.
Gold: | ![]() |
Silver: | ![]() |
Bronze: | ![]() |
As expected, the 1980 Biathlon relay became a duel between the defending Olympic Champion Soviet Union and East Germany, World Champion in 1978 and 1979. At the first leg, the Soviet Unionâs [Vladimir Alikin] took a 23-second lead over East Germanyâs 21-year-old [Mathias Jung], who was making his international championship début. France was in third, followed by Austria and Finland, all well behind the two leading teams. At the second leg, [Aleksandr Tikhonov], the 33-year old Soviet veteran, already with three Olympic relay gold medals and six World Championships relay gold medals in his pocket, expanded the Soviet lead to almost 1½ minutes over East Germanyâs [Klaus Siebert], who had to ski two penalty laps. Despite [Frank Ullrich]âs superb third leg, gaining 47 seconds on the Soviet Unionâs [Vladimir Barnashov], anchor skier [Anatoly Alyabyev] had no problems in securing another relay gold medal for the Soviet team, their fourth out of four possible so far at the Olympics. And Tikhonov had been a team-member on all four occasions!
[Eberhard Rösch] secured East Germanyâs first Olympic biathlon relay silver medal, having won bronze medals in both 1972 and 1976. The fight for the bronze medal was close. West Germanyâs 20-year-old [Peter Angerer] had a solid third leg for his team, advancing from seventh to third, closely followed by Norway and France. On the anchor leg, [Gerd Winkler] went away from his contenders and clinched the first ever international relay medal for West Germany.
Rank | Team | NOC | Medal | T | M | ES | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Soviet Union | URS | Gold | 1-34:03.27 | 0 | 12 | |
2 | East Germany | GDR | Silver | 1-34:56.99 | 3 | 18 | |
3 | West Germany | FRG | Bronze | 1-37:30.26 | 2 | 15 | |
4 | Norway | NOR | 1-38:11.76 | 3 | 17 | ||
5 | France | FRA | 1-38:23.36 | 0 | 15 | ||
6 | Austria | AUT | 1-38:32.02 | 4 | 11 | ||
7 | Finland | FIN | 1-38:50.84 | 6 | 15 | ||
8 | United States | USA | 1-39:24.29 | 0 | 13 | ||
9 | Italy | ITA | 1-40:20.79 | 2 | 15 | ||
10 | Sweden | SWE | 1-40:44.62 | 6 | 16 | ||
11 | Czechoslovakia | TCH | 1-41:48.62 | 4 | 10 | ||
12 | Great Britain | GBR | 1-42:10.59 | 2 | 14 | ||
13 | Japan | JPN | 1-45:53.98 | 7 | 16 | ||
14 | China | CHN | 2-01:33.36 | 18 | 22 | ||
AC | Argentina | ARG | DNF |