Biathlon World Championships 2009
Biathlon World Championships 2009
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| Individual | men | women | ||
| Sprint | men | women | ||
| Pursuit | men | women | ||
| Mass start | men | women | ||
| Relay | men | mixed | women | |
The 43rd Biathlon World Championships were held in Pyeongchang, South Korea from February 13 to February 22, 2009. It was the first time that the Biathlon World Championships were held in Asia (outside of Asian Russia).
There were a total of 11 competitions: sprint, pursuit, individual, mass start, and relay races for men and women, and the relatively new mixed relay. All the events during this championships also counted for the 2008–09 Biathlon World Cup season.
Before the championships even started there was controversy with three Russian biathletes being sent home, for having failed drugs tests during a previous round of the World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden. Then the first day's competition was only made possible after the efforts of over 500 volunteers, working overnight managed to re-lay the competition tracks with man-made snow after all the natural snow had disappeared after unusual weather conditions melted it all away.
The events themselves started with a victory for Kati Wilhelm in the women's sprint and an extraordinary 1,2,3,4 for Norway in the men's sprint with Ole Einar Bjørndalen coming out on top.
Drama started on the second day with reigning champion, Andrea Henkel disqualified before the women's pursuit even started after she accidentally loaded her rifle with live ammunition and fired a round during a pre-race practice, leaving Helena Jonsson from Sweden to capture a surprise gold medal, moving into the medal positions from fifth place only after shooting clear on the final shoot.
Then during the men's 12.5 km pursuit, 15 competitors at least, including race leader and eventual winner Ole Einar Bjørndalen, skied the wrong way at the start of the first lap. Just after leaving the start, the athletes skied over a bridge instead of around it, which was a course change from the previous day's sprint competition. Following a complaint from the Russian team, a race jury gave nine athletes a one-minute time penalty, relegating Bjørndalen from first to the bronze medal position and awarding the gold medal to the Russian Maxim Tchoudov. However, a counter complaint by seven other member states led to the Appeal Jury reverting to the original result. It was a record 12th World Championship gold medal for Bjørndalen. Because the world championships count towards the World Cup, the win was Bjørndalen's 86th victory, equaling the winter-sport record of 86 World Cup victories by Swedish Alpine skier Ingemar Stenmark.
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