Gross & Glagow grab gold

Germany's Ricco Gross was unstoppable on Sunday when he claimed gold in the men's pursuit while compatriot Martina Glagow and France's Sandrine Bailly tied for gold after a photo finish in the women's race at the Biathlon World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk.

RE-LIVE: Men's & Women's pursuit races at the Biathlon WCH

The morning's competition began with the men's 12.5-kilometre pursuit, with Saturday's world sprint champion Ole Einar Björndalen starting first with a 50-second lead over Gross and a 56-second lead over Czech Zdenek Vitek.

While it initially appeared as through Björndalen would comfortably cruise to his second gold of the championships, the race suddenly changed gears behind the Norwegian quadruple Olympic champion, who was visibly tired and faded back to eighth place.

Storming into command after clearing the first two (prone) shooting sessions, Gross used his powerful skiing to increase his advantage over the field. Despite missing two targets - one in each of the two final (standing) shooting sessions - Gross was too strong to be overtaken on the trails.

Even Haarvard Hanevold of Norway, who only missed one target in total, couldn't match Gross' speed. The Norwegian passed the German in the final kilometre but was quickly reeled in over the final sprint and had to settle for the silver medal (+12 seconds). Moving up from 21st place to bronze medal position was Finland's Paavo Puurunen (+56 seconds).

While the men's race was fairly close, the women's competition was one of the tightest affairs in Biathlon history. With France's Sylvie Becaert the first to start with a 27-second advantage thanks to her gold medal-winning performance in Saturday's sprint, once again, the leader was not meant to win.

Becaert started strongly enough but a surprising total of five missed targets pushed her out of gold medal contention and the Frenchwoman crossed the finish line in fifth place.

As the race progressed, a two-way battle developed between Glagow, who began the race in 10th (58 seconds behind) and Bailly, who started seventh (+40 seconds). It wasn't until after the final (standing) shooting session, when each missed one target, that the duel heated up.

Skiing side by side in the final kilometre, Glagow surged forward with 200 metres to go but Bailly didn't have her final say. Both women threw themselves over the finish line together and it wasn't until a painfully suspensful five minutes later that the winner was announced as Glagow in a photo finish. However, the French team protested and a decison was made to grant gold to both women.

Svetlana Ishmouratova granted Russia the first medal of their home championships with bronze, 52.3 seconds behind and a total of four missed targets.