ANTERSELVA, Italy — Clean shooting secured Johan-Olav Botn of Norway the gold medal after the men’s 20-kilometer individual biathlon at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics on Tuesday.Eric Perrot of France missed one shot and finished 14.8 seconds behind Botn to secure the silver while Botn’s teammate Sturla Holm Laegreid was 48.3 seconds behind with also one miss. Botn pointed to the sky as he crossed the finish line, remembering teammate Sivert Guttorm Bakken, who was found dead in his hotel room in Lavazè, Italy, in December.Crowd favorite Tommaso Giacomel of Italy was sixth, 2:27 back, after missing three targets. Defending Olympic champion Quentin Fillon Maillet of France missed four and finished eighth, 2.49 minutes back.Under cloudy skies, each racer left the start gate at 30-second intervals and skied four-kilometer loops five times and alternated shooting twice each in the prone and standing positions. Each missed shot added a minute to their overall time.Popular ReadsThe individual is the most challenging of all biathlon formats. The men’s 20-kilometer (12.4 miles) individual is the most severe penalized for missed targets. Time is added for each missed shot instead of skiing a 150-meter penalty loop, which takes about 20 seconds.The women race their individual event on Wednesday.___AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics …
