Brilliant Berger takes fourth gold in Nove Mesto relay
BySportsbeat
Updated 16/02/2013 at 07:50 GMT
Tora Berger produced a stunning last leg of the women's 4x6km relay at the Biathlon World Championships to steer Norway to victory for her fourth gold medal from five events.
Hilde Fenne, Ann Kristin Aafedt Flatland, Tora Berger and Synnoeve Solemdal of Norway (R to L) celebrate their victory in the women's 4x6 km relay during the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships in Nove Mesto (Reuters)
Image credit: Eurosport
The 31-year-old has been nigh-on untouchable in Nove Mesto. The only event which she has not won is the 7.5km sprint - and even then she was second behind Olena Pidhrushna.
She headed into the women's relay with pursuit and individual gold medals already garnered as well as the mixed team relay title claimed on the opening day in the Czech Republic.
However, taking over for the fourth and final leg, it looked like Berger would have to make do with a rare place off the podium with Norway almost 14 seconds off third-placed Italy.
Up until that point Berger's team-mates Hilde Fenne, Ann Kristin Aafedt Flatland and Synnoeve Solemdal had not fared too well in the range with nine missed targets between them.
However Berger missed just one, in her last shoot, as she made up the time on Italy - and almost 40s on Ukraine and Germany to give Norway an unlikely win.
She even dropped to fifth spot with the deficit 21 seconds after the penultimate shoot; however, by the last shoot it was less than 3s with Italian Karin Oberhofer going clear for the lead.
Ukraine were second, with Berger up to third. The Norwegian came through to claim a famous win.
Berger managed a finishing time of 1:08:11.0 that was seven seconds quicker than that of the Ukrainian quartet while Italy held on for bronze another 4.6 further adrift.
That was Italy's first ever women's podium finish at the World Championships while Russia occupied fourth, 29 seconds behind in total, with Germany another 1.9 back in fifth.
Berger has now won eight World Championship titles having claimed three in Ruhpolding last year and her maiden crown as part of Norway's mixed relay team in Russia in 2011.
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