MIDWAY ? With impeccable shooting over the final half of the race, Germany cruised to its second straight Olympic gold medal in the women's 30-kilometer biathlon relay Monday.
Katrin Apel, Uschi Disl, Andrea Henkel and Kati Wilhelm covered the Soldier Hollow course in 1 hour, 27 minutes, 55 seconds. Norway won the silver, finishing 30.6 seconds back. Russia took the bronze, 1 minute, 24.7 seconds behind.
The U.S. women ended a disappointing Olympics by finishing last among the 15-team field.
After bringing back two of the four biathletes from the winning 1998 team, the Germans were the heavy favorite to capture this event again, and after some shaky rifle work on the first leg, they stormed back.
Henkel, already with a gold-medal performance in the 15-kilometer last week, hit all 10 of her targets on the third leg. When she tapped teammate Wilhelm to begin the final 7.5-kilometer leg, Germany had a commanding 38.6-second lead over Norway.
The Norwegians' only chance was for Wilhelm to falter on the firing range, and she did just that, missing two shots. But Norway's Liv Grete Poiree couldn't capitalize, missing twice as well. She left the range 42.8 seconds back, with no hope of catching Wilhelm.
Under the rules, each biathlete shoots twice, the first time prone and the second from the more difficult standing position. They get eight .22-caliber bullets to make five targets, but if they go through the first five in their clips, they must load each bullet individually after that. For each of the black, circular targets left standing, the skier must circle a 150-meter penalty loop situated nearby.
Germany incurred just one penalty loop during the whole race, and that belonged to Apel, who emptied her clip, used up all her extra bullets and still couldn't hit the final target.
Her mistakes dropped the Germans to 12th, but like all the German women, Apel is an excellent skier. By the time she handed off to Disl, the team had climbed to sixth. Disl was perfect on her first shooting stage, and Germany didn't trail again.