By his own admission, his first Olympic race was disappointing, but Australian biathlete Alex Almoukov is looking forward to making amends with a better performance in the tougher 20 kilometre event on Thursday (Vancouver time) at Whistler Olympic Park.

The longer event features five four-kilometre laps, with a shooting stop after each of the first four. Each biathlete will shoot at 20 targets, the first and third sets of five in the prone position, the second and fourth standing.

Whereas in the sprint race, the penalty for a missed target is a lap of a 15-metre penalty loop, in the longer event each missed target immediately adds a penalty minute to the competitor’s time.

“It’s definitely a harsher penalty than the sprint, but it also could work as an advantage if I’m not feeling as good with my skiing. Maybe if I shoot well I could get a better result,” the 19-year-old Olympic debutant explained.

“My best result I shot 19 in Pokljuka (in Slovenia in December).  That was an incredible result for me and I skied really well too, so that was my best world cup, but in other events I’ve missed five or six targets.

“I definitely enjoy it more because you can take a bit more time to hit the targets but it doesn’t always work out.”

Almoukov says it’s hard to take any specific tactics into a race where you aren’t always sure of your own standing, let alone your position relative to the skiers around you, with everyone starting at 30-second intervals and then lapping the same course five times.

“In an individual race you don’t really know what place your coming. Even if another competitor is catching up to you don’t know how many penalties he has. He might have missed one target or he could have five penalties, so you could still be placed well ahead (on the adjusted time).”

As to whether he is trying to put his earlier disappointing result in the 10km Sprint on Sunday out of his mind, Almoukov says he knows he simply has to do better.

“I feel a little bit of pressure to do better than I did in the sprint, because I didn’t get the sort of result I wanted. Hopefully I’m skiing a little faster and I can shoot well.

“If I can move up 20 places I’ll be really happy.”

It will also be a chance at some sort of redemption for some of the sport’s most decorated stars, such as Norwegian legend Ole Einar Bjoerndalen. The five-time Olympic gold medallist was only 17th in the sprint, although he moved up to seventh in Tuesday’s pursuit race.

Others to watch are the Frenchman who won the sprint and took bronze in the pursuit, Vincent Jay, as well as German champion Michael Greis – the Torino 2006 gold medallist - and his countryman Andreas Birnbacher, Bjoerndalen’s compatriots Emil Hegle Svendsen and 1998 Olympic champion Halvard Hanevold and rising American Tim Burke.

Murray Brust
AOC Whistler