7.5 kilometres Sprint, Women

The world champion in 1996 and 1997 was Olga Romasko of Belarus. But the two favorites were Germany’s Uschi Disl and Sweden’s Magdalena Forsberg. Disl had been third in the seasonal World Cup in the last two seasons, while Forsberg had won in 1996-97. In 1997-98 they were again 1-2 in the World Cup coming into Nagano. But both Romasko and Forsberg would miss three targets and eventually finish 17th and 27th respectively. Germany’s Katrin Apel started second, missed one target, and her 23:32.4 would lead for about half the race. But the 33rd starter was Russian Galina Kukleva, who finished in 23:08.0, also missing one target. Disl was two starters behind and was right on Kukleva’s pace throughout. As she crossed the line, she fell forward and Kukleva, who was watching closely, helped her up. When they looked at the scoreboard, Disl had just missed the gold, finishing 7/10ths behind Kukleva, with Apel’s time holding on for the gold.

Disl was in the midst of a great career. From 1992-2005 she won eight World Championships and 19 medals at the Worlds. She eventually won nine Olympic medals, including two golds in the relay in 1998 and 2002, but never won an individual Olympic gold. Apel would also win numerous international medals, with three golds and nine medals at the World Championships, and four Olympic medals, including two relay golds. For Kukleva, Nagano was the highlight of her career, as she added a relay silver to her gold medal in this race. She would win six World Championship medals in her career with one individual silver in the 2000 mass start event.