Makarainen takes hold of yellow jersey after dramatic biathlon finale
BySportsbeat
Published 14/01/2018 at 16:28 GMT
Kaisa Makarainen emphatically showed age is no barrier to her biathlon talents after storming to gold in the women's 12.5km mass start in Ruhpolding.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
Not since 2014 has an athlete won a women's World Cup biathlon race older than the Finn's 35 years, when Andrea Henkel stormed to success in Antholz aged 36.
But Makarainen showed a turn of pace and then some in Germany, ousting home favourite Laura Dahlmeier in a cat and mouse finish to the line.
The two were almost neck and neck heading into the closing stages but it was Makarainen who held on by just 0.8 seconds to take top spot.
Third place went to fast-finishing Veronika Vitkova of Czech Republic as each of the podium riders missed two shots while Canada's Rosanna Crawford, the only women to shoot clean, was fourth.
Anastasiya Kuzmina led the field out in the early stages, though Darya Domracheva seized the initiative with some clean shooting.
She kept that lead until being joined in the final shoot by Makarainen and Dahlmeier, though the Belarussian's two missed targets proved costly as she slipped down the field.
That left the German and Finnish stars battling it out for gold, with the latter the one to just about hold on to take the yellow jersey for this week, 19 points ahead of Kuzmina.
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