KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia, February 14 (R-Sport) – Darya Domracheva of Belarus added the individual gold to her pursuit title at the Sochi Olympics on Friday, destroying a high-octane field in the 15 kilometer race.
The 27-year-old from Minsk missed just once at the second shooting stop to record an overall time of 43 minutes, 19.6 seconds at the Laura biathlon course.
Domracheva won Tuesday's pursuit by the vast margin of 37.6 seconds to become the first Belarusian woman ever to win Winter Olympic gold.
So fast was Domracheva around the course that she beat her nearest two clean-shooting rivals, Selina Gasparin of Switzerland, who took the silver a minute and trailed by 15 seconds, and her compatriot Nadezhda Skardino, who claimed bronze and was 22 seconds behind.
This season's World Cup champion, Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic, was bumped off the podium into fourth, 1:57.5 minutes off the lead due to two misses on the shooting range.
In the individual event, each miss earns the biathlete a one-minute penalty.
Russia's best effort came from two-time champion Olga Zaitseva, 35, who was a huge four minutes adrift after missing once at each of the last two stops. She finished 15th.
Russia has only one biathlon medal so far, after Olga Vilukhina finished Sunday’s sprint behind Slovakia’s Anastasia Kuzmina. Vilukhina skipped the individual after falling ill.
