OLYMPICS: Gregorin Claims Bronze in Biathlon Pursuit
Sochi, 11 February - Slovenia claimed its second bronze medal of the day at the Sochi Games, as Teja Gregorin kept her nerve on the shooting range and exploded in the final running leg to claim third place in the women's 10km biathlon pursuit event on Tuesday.
Rudno Polje
Teja Gregorin wins second bronze medal of the day in Sochi.
Photo: Tamino Petelinšek/STA
The 33-year-old Gregorin won Slovenia's first-ever Olympic biathlon medal in the final 2.5 kilometres of the race, after standing in 10th place before the fourth and final shooting stage.
Bouncing back from a missed shot in the previous shooting stage - her only miss of the day - she kept her nerve to down all five targets and put herself in shot of a podium place.
Emerging from the shooting range in sixth, Gregorin put on a frantic run to move into third place only two minutes later.
She never looked back from there, cruising in the final kilometre of the race to claim the country's second bronze of the day, only hours after Vesna Fabjan took third place in the women's cross country pursuit.
"The last two kilometres were the hardest because I didn't know how much gas I had left in the tank and what the competitors could do. But when I saw that a medal was possible, I gave it my all," said Gregorin about the strong finish.
The winner of the pursuit event was Darya Domracheva of Belarus, who dominated proceedings from the start to cross the line in a time of 29:30.7, more than half a minute ahead of the nearest challenger.
Second place went to Tora Berger of Norway, who was 34 seconds behind the winner, while Gregorin crossed a further 8 seconds abaft.
Gregorin extends Slovenia's medal count in Sochi to three (one silver, two bronze) and to 14 in all Winter Games to date.