February 16, 2008 (Oestersund, Sweden) – Russian men easily skied away Saturday with the 4×7.5km relay gold medal at the 2008 Biathlon World Championships, winning by 49.2 seconds over Norway. Germany was third with the USA 15th and Canada 21st.

Later, Germany’s Magdalena Neuner – a heroine in the mixed relay as Germany also copped gold there – stormed to the gold medal in the 12.5km mass start, which was limited to the top 30 skiers in World Cup points. No North Americans raced.

Neuner’s winning time was 39:36.5. She missed four shots but simply out-skied Norwegian Tora Berger, who missed only once, but couldn’t hold off Neuner and was three seconds away from the gold. The bronze medal went to Russian Ekaterina Iourieva (40:06.0).

In the men’s relay, Ivan Tcherezov put Russia in front with a strong opening leg, only by four-tenths of a second, but still in front. Nikolay Kruglov missed two shots on the second but Norway’s Rune Bratsveen had three penalties, and Russia extended its miniscule lead over Norway to 6.5 seconds over Germany.

And then Germany all but collapsed as Andreas Birnbacher missed six shots on the third lap and usually solid Michael Greis had five misses as the anchor skier. Still, Greis was able to overtake Austria and the Czechs to lift Germany from seventh place to third.

Up front, Halvard Hanevold had three missed shots for Norway and that dropped Norwa so far back – 54.1 seconds – even perfect shooting and rocket skiing by Ole einar Bjoerndalen couldn’t catch Russia. The winning time was 1:21.00.7 with Norway as silver medalist (Bjoerndalen’s fourth medal) in 1:21.49.9.

“I loved the race. The atmosphere here in Oestersund with so many Norwegian fans in the stadium was and is just fantastic,” Hanevold said. “That’s what we are dreaming of all the time when we’re out in the woods training.”

The championships come to an end Sunday with the women’s 4x6km relay and the men’s 15km mass start, which also is restricted to the top 30 skiers. American Tim Burke will be the lone North American biathlete competing.

Full results here.