Sprint (10 kilometres), Men

Although the defending champion, Sven Fischer of Germany, had retired Ole Einar Bjørndalen returned to attempt to regain the title he had won in 2002. The 35 year old Norwegian had shown excellent early season form, 2 wins and a second place from 4 World Cup sprint races, and expectations were high that he could add to his tally of nine Olympic medals. Just as in the women’s sprint event a day earlier, this race too produced a major surprise. Competitors started at 30 second intervals, and this proved to benefit those with an early start. Klemen Bauer of Slovenia started second and was the early leader in a time of 24:25.2 – this would eventually be good enough for 4th place. Croatian Jakov Fak took over the lead with a time of 24:21.8, but this was soon surpassed by Vincent Jay of France in a time of 24:07.8. As the weather conditions then deteriorated out on the course, the favourites struggled with their shooting in the wind and driving snow. Bjørndalen’s chances ended when he missed three shots at his first visit to the range and he had to be content with 17th place. Only his compatriot, Emil Hegle Svendsen mastered the conditions to finish with the silver medal in a time of 24:20.0, although he too started early (10th) and missed one shot on the course. A clear indication that the competition became somewhat of a lottery is the fact that only two of the first fifteen starters placed lower than fifteenth at the finish.

Of the three medallists only Emil Hegle Svendsen’s appearance on the podium could have been predicted with any confidence. Vincent Jay had been a solid performer on the World Cup circuit but had previously won only a single race, at the pre-Olympic test event at Whistler in March 2010, and had only one top ten finish in the season prior to the Olympics. Jakov Fak was ranked just outside the world’s top sixty although even this high a ranking was largely gained by a single astonishing performance at the 2009 World Championship where he also won a completely unexpected bronze medal. This was Croatia’s first ever Winter Games medal although by summer Fak had already transferred his allegiance to Slovenia.