By Philip O'Connor
ANTERSELVA, Italy, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Johannes Dale-Skjevdal of Norway hit a perfect 20 for 20 on the shooting range to storm to victory in the men's biathlon 15-km mass start on Friday and give Norway a record for most golds at a Winter Games.
Norway's 17 gold medals so far at Milano-Cortina surpasses their own previous record for a single nation of 16 at Beijing 2022.
Dale-Skjevdal's compatriot Sturla Holm Laegreid took the silver, 10.5 seconds behind, with Quentin Fillon Maillet
of France storming past Germany's Philipp Horn on the last lap to secure bronze.
Dale-Skjevdal was the only biathlete in the 30-man field not to miss a shot on the day, and it paved the way for gold for the hugely talented but often erratic 28-year-old.
"There's a lot of feelings. Olympic champion. Damn, it's sick, it's a dream ... I have no words," Dale-Skjevdal told Norwegian TV.
BATTLE FOR BRONZE
The 30 biathletes faced five laps of the 3-km course, shooting twice from the prone position (on their stomach) and twice standing, with each miss costing them a trip around the 150-metre penalty loop.
Emilien Jacquelin of France and Tommaso Giacomel of Italy made the early running, but both fell away before the third shoot, with Giacomel quitting the race entirely after experiencing a pain in his side.
Heavy snowfall on Thursday and an unpredictable wind made conditions challenging, but the Norwegians exerted all of their experience to gradually take a stranglehold on the race.
The blustery wind picked up considerably and caused chaos at the third shoot, but Dale-Skjevdal fired another series of perfect shots to take a lead over Laegreid, and Horn came out in third with Fillon Maillet hot on his heels.
Dale-Skjevdal's fourth series of five hits secured the gold and, with Laegreid comfortably in the silver medal position, it came down to the battle for bronze.
Nestled in fourth spot, Fillon Maillet made his move with 1.2 km left, and though Horn did his best to answer the surge, the Frenchman burst away from him into a long, curving downhill stretch. By the bottom of it, the bronze was his.
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
