Medals update: Quentin Fillon Maillet wins gold in Beijing 2022 biathlon men’s 12.5km pursuit

With a record-breaking performance, Quentin Fillon Maillet wins his second gold of Beijing 2022, this time in the men's 12.km biathlon pursuit, which took place on Sunday (13 February) at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre. The Frenchman also claimed the Olympic title in the 20km individual on Tuesday (8 February), as well as silver in the 10km sprint, and the mixed relay this past week.

Norway's Tarjei Boe claimed the silver medal in a time of 39:36.1 to Fillon Maillet's 39:07.5, overtaking the ROC's Evgeni Latypov (39:42.8) on the track to come in second and third, respectively.

Boe beat younger brother, one Johannes Thingnes Boe, whose chance of achieving a seventh Olympic medal to get a little closer to Norwegian biathlon legend Ole Einar Bjørndalen (13 medals, eight gold), fell away after missing seven shots on the range, an untimely gust of wind thwarting Boe's target hitting to finish fifth.

In comparison, Fillon Maillet hit a sensational 20 out of 20 with the only other person to achieve that feat today, Italy's Lukas Hofer who finished just off the podium in fourth.

The comeback of the day goes to Austrian Felix Leitner who started 46th but finished 10th.

Fillon Maillet has now stepped onto the Olympic podium on four occasions at Beijing 2022 and expressed his surprise at how well he has performed at the Games.

 “I never expected to have four medals in four races. My goal, it’s to have one in relay and one in individual, but right now I have four medals and that’s incredible,” he said, before adding, “I’m so proud of myself because today, the conditions were so hard - windy, snowing. It was a very, very hard fight during all the race.”

Silver medallist Boe was left pleased with his second-place finish, in a race that played out in challenging weather conditions.

 “A little relieved. It was a tough day, I guess everyone who watched the race felt it too. It was difficult.

“Trying to hit those targets in these conditions is tough, but for me it was a good day. I was lucky the conditions were hard because it was my way of getting onto the podium.”

The next biathlon event is the 15 February with the men's 4x7.5km relay.