10 kilometres Sprint, Men

This event was expected to be a close duel between defending Champion Frank Ullrich and Erik Kvalfoss, World Champion in the event in 1982 and 1983. But the 20 km race three days earlier had shown that Ullrich was far from his former self regarding speed on the cross-country track.

After the first shooting round, 16 out of 64 competitors had perfect shooting scores, and the Soviet Union’s Algimantas Šalna, a 24-year-old Lithuanian, had taken the lead, five seconds ahead of Yvon Mougel from France. Two of the earliest starters, 20-year-old Yury Kashkarov from the USSR, and Norway’s Kjell Søbak followed as third and fourth. Two of the main favorites, Kvalfoss and the Olympic 20 km champion from three days earlier, Peter Angerer, followed in the next places, Kvalfoss being the only one who had to ski a penalty lap. At the final shooting round, Kashkarov missed twice and seemed out of the medal contention. Søbak, with one missed target, took over the lead until East Germany’s Matthias Jacob, lying ninth after the first shooting, had a perfect series of shots and bettered Søbak’s time by seven seconds. Both the leader Šalna, and Mougel, missed twice and were behind Jacob and Søbak. Next of the favorites to the final set of targets was Kvalfoss. He missed one target and had to ski one penalty lap, but due to his skiing speed he took over the lead, four seconds ahead of Jacob. The last of the favorites to arrive was Angerer. With a perfect shooting round he could challenge Kvalfoss’ leading time, but he missed one target and left as third, only one second behind Jacob. Over the last 2.5 km Kvalfoss extended his lead to nine seconds and won Norway’s first Olympic biathlon gold in twelve years. Angerer was faster than Jacob in the final ski segment and won his second individual Olympic medal, and Jacob, having won two World Championships relay gold medals in 1981 and 1982, won his first individual Olympic medal by securing the bronze. Søbak and Šalna were nine and ten seconds too late, respectively, for a medal. Ullrich had to ski three penalty laps and was once again skiing far slower than normal, finishing a distant 17th, 1:47 behind the winner Kvalfoss.