Biathlon at the 2002 Winter Olympics – Men's individual

Men's biathlon individual at the XIX Olympic Winter Games
Venue	Soldier Hollow
Dates	February 11
Competitors	87 from 34 nations
Winning time	49:03.3
Medalists
Ole Einar Bjørndalen  Norway Frank Luck  Germany Viktor Maigourov  Russia

Biathlon at the 2002 Winter Olympics
Individual		men		women
Sprint		men		women
Pursuit		men		women
Relay		men		women

The Men's 20 kilometre individual biathlon competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics was held on 11 February, at Soldier Hollow. Competitors raced over five loops of a 4.0 kilometre skiing course, shooting four times, twice prone and twice standing. Each miss resulted in one minute being added to a competitor's skiing time.

Results

Raphaël Poirée was defending overall World Cup champion, while Sergei Rozhkov was the defending World Cup champion in the individual race. Paavo Puurunen had won the most recent world championships, and Halvard Hanevold had won the 1998 Olympic title. Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who had finished just behind Poirée in the overall world cup, had dominated the test event in 2001, winning all three races, including the individual, beating Sven Fischer. Frank Luck led the World Cup in the Individual entering the Games, having won one of the warmup events, with Pavel Rostovtsev and Daniel Mesotitsch winning the others.

Bjørndalen, having just placed 5th in the 30 kilometre cross-country race, was the earliest of the favourites to start. He missed once on both his second and third shoots, but still had the fastest time, just ahead of Viktor Maigourov, who had missed only once. Neither would miss on the last shoot, but over the final two loops, Bjørndalen would gain more than 30 seconds on the Russian, easily taking the early lead. Poirée was ahead of Bjørndalen with only a single miss on the first three shots, but faded after missing a shot on the last set, ending up 10th. Rozkhov shot clear, but struggled with his skiing, unable to get anywhere near the leaders with his pace on the snow, and ending up 12th.

Just behind him, Ricco Groß was level with Bjørndalen early, and while he did record one of the faster ski times, his two misses meant he finished nearly a minute behind, in third for the time being. Like Rozkhov, Frank Luck also shot clear, and after Bjørndalen's second miss, he was ahead of the Norwegian by 23 seconds. He couldn't match the Norweigian's ski time over the final section, though, ending up just ahead of Maigurov in silver medal position. Hanevold was another who shot clear, but ended up 5th. Frode Andresen, the last starter, and the closest to matching Bjørndalen in ski pace, was ahead of his countryman by 90 seconds after the third shoot, having been clear to that point, but then missed three on the final shoot, sending him all the way down to 7th and securing Bjørndalen's victory. "It was worse to stand here watching Frode shoot than shoot myself," Bjørndalen said.

Rank	Name	Country	Ski Time	Penalties	Result	Deficit
	Ole Einar Bjørndalen	Norway	49:03.3	2	51:03.3	-
	Frank Luck	Germany	51:39.4	0	51:39.4	+00:36.1
	Viktor Maigourov	Russia	50:40.6	1	51:40.6	+00:37.3
4	Ricco Groß	Germany	49:58.7	2	51:58.7	+00:55.4
5	Halvard Hanevold	Norway	52:16.3	0	52:16.3	+01:13.0
6	Pavel Rostovtsev	Russia	51:33.5	1	52:33.5	+01:30.2
7	Frode Andresen	Norway	49:39.1	3	52:39.1	+01:35.8
8	Sergei Tchepikov	Russia	51:44.2	1	52:44.2	+01:40.9
9	Vadim Sashurin	Belarus	52:52.6	0	52:52.6	+01:49.3
10	Raphaël Poirée	France	50:52.9	2	52:52.9	+01:49.6
11	Ludwig Gredler	Austria	51:19.3	2	53:19.3	+02:16.0
12	Sergei Rozhkov	Russia	53:43.8	0	53:43.8	+02:40.5
13	Marko Dolenc	Slovenia	51:45.8	2	53:45.8	+02:42.5
14	Jeremy Teela	United States	51:56.5	2	53:56.5	+02:53.2
15	Paavo Puurunen	Finland	51:15.7	3	54:15.7	+03:12.4
16	Egil Gjelland	Norway	52:16.1	2	54:16.1	+03:12.8
17	Alexei Aidarov	Belarus	51:25.3	3	54:25.3	+03:22.0
18	Tomaž Globočnik	Slovenia	53:40.6	1	54:40.6	+03:37.3
19	Vesa Hietalahti	Finland	52:47.0	2	54:47.0	+03:43.7
20	Kyoji Suga	Japan	52:51.9	2	54:51.9	+03:48.6
21	René Cattarinussi	Italy	52:57.2	2	54:57.2	+03:53.9
22	Christoph Sumann	Austria	52:00.3	3	55:00.3	+03:57.0
23	Vyacheslav Derkach	Ukraine	54:01.3	1	55:01.3	+03:58.0
24	Ruslan Lysenko	Ukraine	53:02.1	2	55:02.1	+03:58.8
25	Petr Garabík	Czech Republic	53:12.2	2	55:12.2	+04:08.9
26	Jay Hakkinen	United States	52:13.8	3	55:13.8	+04:10.5
27	Andriy Deryzemlia	Ukraine	54:14.8	1	55:14.8	+04:11.5
28	Robin Clegg	Canada	53:17.5	2	55:17.5	+04:14.2
29	Sven Fischer	Germany	51:23.2	4	55:23.2	+04:19.9
30	Wiesław Ziemianin	Poland	54:35.2	1	55:35.2	+04:31.9
31	Oleg Ryzhenkov	Belarus	51:56.6	4	55:56.6	+04:53.3
32	Wolfgang Perner	Austria	51:00.4	5	56:00.4	+04:57.1
33	Paolo Longo	Italy	55:11.9	1	56:11.9	+05:08.6
34	Alexander Wolf	Germany	51:16.6	5	56:16.6	+05:13.3
35	Jēkabs Nākums	Latvia	55:19.6	1	56:19.6	+05:16.3
36	Roman Dostál	Czech Republic	52:19.6	4	56:19.6	+05:16.3
37	Vincent Defrasne	France	53:20.3	3	56:20.3	+05:17.0
38	Björn Ferry	Sweden	52:20.7	4	56:20.7	+05:17.4
39	Ilmārs Bricis	Latvia	53:24.4	3	56:24.4	+05:21.1
40	Carl Johan Bergman	Sweden	53:24.5	3	56:24.5	+05:21.2
41	Timo Antila	Finland	53:33.5	3	56:33.5	+05:30.2
42	Ivan Masařík	Czech Republic	53:40.6	3	56:40.6	+05:37.3
43	Janez Marič	Slovenia	51:51.9	5	56:51.9	+05:48.6
44	Hidenori Isa	Japan	52:52.8	4	56:52.8	+05:49.5
45	Roland Lessing	Estonia	54:08.4	3	57:08.4	+06:05.1
46	Tomasz Sikora	Poland	53:08.5	4	57:08.5	+06:05.2
47	Henrik Forsberg	Sweden	51:22.0	6	57:22.0	+06:18.7
48	Jason Sklenar	Great Britain	54:27.2	3	57:27.2	+06:23.9
49	Dmitry Pantov	Kazakhstan	54:32.8	3	57:32.8	+06:29.5
50	Wilfried Pallhuber	Italy	52:33.2	5	57:33.2	+06:29.9
51	Marian Blaj	Romania	54:36.8	3	57:36.8	+06:33.5
52	Marek Matiaško	Slovakia	53:37.8	4	57:37.8	+06:34.5
53	Indrek Tobreluts	Estonia	53:52.1	4	57:52.1	+06:48.8
54	Julien Robert	France	54:54.0	3	57:54.0	+06:50.7
55	Tord Wiksten	Sweden	56:02.3	2	58:02.3	+06:59.0
56	Dimitri Borovik	Estonia	53:02.5	5	58:02.5	+06:59.2
57	Zdeněk Vítek	Czech Republic	52:07.9	6	58:07.9	+07:04.6
58	Roland Zwahlen	Switzerland	54:10.6	4	58:10.6	+07:07.3
59	Zhang Qing	China	54:13.9	4	58:13.9	+07:10.6
60	Rustam Valiullin	Belarus	52:46.7	6	58:46.7	+07:43.4
61	Jean-Marc Chabloz	Switzerland	55:59.4	3	58:59.4	+07:56.1
62	Liutauras Barila	Lithuania	55:02.3	4	59:02.3	+07:59.0
63	Janno Prants	Estonia	53:14.0	6	59:14.0	+08:10.7
64	Daniel Mesotitsch	Austria	53:15.9	6	59:15.9	+08:12.6
65	Georgi Kasabov	Bulgaria	55:16.1	4	59:16.1	+08:12.8
66	Hironao Meguro	Japan	56:29.2	3	59:29.2	+08:25.9
67	Ville Räikkönen	Finland	55:34.2	4	59:34.2	+08:30.9
68	Oleksandr Bilanenko	Ukraine	55:34.4	4	59:34.4	+08:31.1
69	Wojciech Kozub	Poland	54:35.1	5	59:35.1	08:31.8
70	Imre Tagscherer	Hungary	56:51.8	3	59:51.8	08:48.5
71	Gundars Upenieks	Latvia	54:56.0	5	59:56.0	08:52.7
72	Rene Laurent Vuillermoz	Italy	54:00.7	6	60:00.7	08:57.4
73	Aleksandr Tropnikov	Kyrgyzstan	58:05.3	2	60:05.3	09:02.0
74	Krzysztof Topór	Poland	54:36.8	6	60:36.8	09:33.5
75	Shin Byung-Kook	23x15px South Korea	56:58.1	4	60:58.1	09:54.8
76	Dan Campbell	United States	54:58.6	6	60:58.6	09:55.3
77	Ferréol Cannard	France	56:32.9	5	61:32.9	10:29.6
78	Matthias Simmen	Switzerland	56:03.0	6	62:03.0	10:59.7
79	Mike Dixon	Great Britain	57:04.9	5	62:04.9	11:01.6
80	Ricardo Oscare	Argentina	56:08.1	6	62:08.1	11:04.8
81	Mark Gee	Great Britain	57:10.2	5	62:10.2	11:06.9
82	Janez Ožbolt	Slovenia	57:16.2	6	63:16.2	12:12.9
83	Žarko Galjanić	Croatia	58:54.4	6	64:54.4	13:51.1
84	Mihail Gribuşencov	Moldova	58:58.5	7	65:58.5	14:55.2
85	Stavros Khristoforidis	Greece	63:09.5	5	68:09.5	17:06.2
86	Carlos Varas	Chile	67:32.2	3	70:32.2	19:28.9
-	Oļegs Maļuhins	Latvia	-	-	DNF	-

References

• Sports-Reference.com - Men's 20 km Individual