Sweden Wins Gold Medal for Biathlon Olympics 2018 4x7.5 Km Relay

Sweden won gold in the men's 4x7.5-kilometre biathlon relay at the 2018 Winter Olympics by almost a minute thanks to some excellent shooting.

They finished in one hour, 15 minutes and 16.5 seconds, while misses proved costly for second-placed Norway and third-placed Germany.

Here are their times:

Sweden (Peppe Femling, Jesper Nelin, Sebastian Samuelsson, Fredrik Lindstroem)—1:15:16.5

Norway (Lars Helge Birkeland, Tarjei Boe, Johannes Thingnes Boe, Emil Hegle Svendsen)—1:16:12.0

Germany (Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Arnd Peiffer, Simon Schempp)—1:17:23.6

Here is the updated medal table:

Lesser got Germany off to a strong start, and he was first in and out of the opening shoot.

Meanwhile, France were hit with two penalty loops after the second shoot to send them 1:18.3 behind, a deficit from which they never recovered.

A powerful finish to the opener from Lesser allowed him to establish an 18.4-second lead over Slovakia—whose Matej Kazar produced two clean shoots—into the first changeover.

Benedikt Doll had shot all five of his targets first time before any other competitor even arrived for the first shoot of the second leg, but he did not fare as well with his second shoot, per Steve Reed of the Associated Press:

The two penalty loops sent Germany 37 seconds behind, while Norway also slipped back after a poor shoot from Tarjei Boe saw him use all three of his spare rounds.

Czech Republic capitalised to lead into the second changeover ahead of Sweden and Austria, per IBU World Cup:

Strong shooting and skiing from Johannes Thingnes Boe helped him take the lead for Norway, though, having started 31 seconds behind when he entered the fray.

Clean standing shooting from Samuelsson put him within a second of Boe heading into the final exchange, with Germany third after Peiffer produced an excellent leg of his own to make up their deficit.

Germany's hopes were soon dashed when Schempp lost a minute after three misses in his shoot, leaving a duel between Sweden's Lindstroem and Norway's Svendsen for gold.

The latter was penalised on the final shoot, handing Sweden a comfortable win.

The Swedes used just seven spare rounds overall and were the only team to avoid penalties entirely.