7.5 kilometres Sprint, Women

The defending champion was Kati Wilhelm who was also leading the World Cup in the 2005-06 season. But she would not shoot cleanly and dropped down to seventh place. Most of the top finishers had clean shooting rounds, as the event had one of the closest finishes in Olympic biathlon history. Although Wilhelm was seventh, she was only 18.4 seconds behind the winner, France’s Florence Baverel-Robert. Baverel-Robert had been around for a long time, winning relay medals at the 1995 and 1996 World Championships, and an individual pursuit bronze at the 2000 Worlds, but she was only 23rd in the 2005-06 World Cup rankings. The silver was even more surprising, going to Swede Anna-Carin Olofsson. She had been a cross-country skier through 2002, but her best finish at the Salt Lake City Olympics was 30th in the 15 km, and she switched to biathlon in 2003.