Norway wins 17th gold medal, setting Winter Olympics record.
ANTERSELVA, Italy -- Johannes Dale-Skjevdal was the only biathlete to hit all 20 targets in the 15-kilometer mass start race Friday and skied his way to Norway's 17th gold medal of the Milan Cortina Olympics -- breaking the record for the most golds won by a nation at a single Winter Games.
Norway had set the record at the 2022 Beijing Olympics with 16 gold medals.
Dale-Skjevdal took the lead after the first standing bout with clean shooting and completed the five laps on newly packed snow and gusty winds in 39 minutes, 17.1 seconds. His teammate Sturla Holm Laegreid missed only one target and finished 10.5 seconds back for silver.
Laegreid won his fifth medal of these Games, though he will also go down in Olympic history for his
on-air infidelity confession.
Philipp Horn of Germany missed one target on his last shooting bout and left the range in third place, but Quentin Fillon Maillet of France, who missed four on the day, chased Horn and passed him on a big hill to claim bronze, 25.6 seconds behind Dale-Skjevdal.
Fillon Maillet, who was on the gold-medal-winning team in the mixed relay and men's relay, also won gold in the sprint.
Only the top 30 biathletes, based on World Cup rankings and Olympic performance, compete in the mass start race. They ski five 3-kilometer loops, shooting twice in the prone position and twice standing.
