Dorothea WIERER

Born April 3 1990, Dorothea “Doro” Wierer Corradini is the most decorated Italian biathlete in history.

The athlete from South Tyrolea was exposed to her sport from a young age growing up in Rasun-Anterselva, a cradle for Italian biathlon renowned for hosting a leg of the IBU World Cup.

Like her siblings Wierer got stuck into the sport and by 2008 she was enjoying her first breakthrough. At the Junior World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany the Italian struck gold, heralding the start of an illustrious career.

Prior to Beijing 2022 Wierer's career resumé boasted seven World Championship medal - including three golds -two World Cup Globes, four individual Globes and two Olympic bronze medals from the mixed relay events at Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018. The one thing that was missing? An individual Olympic title.

The charismatic biathlete made no secret of the fact that she would be hunting the missing puzzle piece at the Games in the Chinese capital. Speaking to Olympics.com in November 2021, on her ambitions for Beijing 2022 Wierer said: “I will give it my all.”

The Italian biathlete certainly gave it everything but her individual medal came where it was least expected. All eyes were on Wierer in favoured event - the mass start but it would turn out to be the women's 7.5km sprint where the she would pick up a long-awaited individual prize.

Though her bronze wasn't the shade of metal 'Doro' had been hoping for the biathlete was delighted to have delivered all the same: "I'm obviously very proud of the medal I conquered in Beijing," she told Biathlonworld. "It is a fantastic reward for all the hard work from the past few years. This individual medal was the last piece missing my career."