ANTERSELVA, Italy — In an upset for the French men’s biathlon team, Martin Ponsiluoma of Sweden dominated on the shooting range Sunday to take the gold medal in the 12.5-kilometer pursuit biathlon race at the Milan Cortina Winter Games, while Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid won silver — six days after making an unexpected personal confession during a post-race interview.Emilien Jacquelin of France led the field coming into the last shooting stage, after cleaning his targets using his characteristic but risky rapid fire technique. But the speed got the best of him and he missed two, allowing Ponsiluoma, who hit all his targets, to exit the range first. Laegreid also cleared his targets and left the range in second place, leaving Jacquelin with bronze. Ponsiluoma, winning the first medal in biathlon for Sweden in these Winter Games, crossed the finish line with a time of 31 minutes and 11.9 seconds. Laegreid was 20.6 seconds behind him while Jacquelin was 29.7 seconds back.The Swede said he feared getting caught on the last lap.“I was really afraid of the chasers,” he said. “I was nervous, but I felt (safe) on the last part of the loop, so I just tried to enjoy it. Doing this at the Olympics is really big. I’m super proud of the race today. I did everything I wanted: I was skiing really fast, shooting fast, the focusing was amazing. So, it was my day today.“Laegreid said he took the race one step at a time.“Ski one meter at a time. Shoot one shot at a time. Do my best with what I can right now and, in the end, we can count the results,” he said.At the post-race press con …
