January 13, 2008 (Ruhpolding, Germany) – Michael Greis started first and finished first to delight his hometown crowd Sunday in a biathlon 12.5 km pursuit event. It was his second World Cup victory in two days at home as World Cup leader Ole Einar Bjoerndalen held onto his lead.

In the women’s 10 km race, Norway’s Solveig Rogstad was the surprise victor, coming from 38 seconds back to by 12.6 seconds. It was her first World Cup victory. German Kati Wilhelm was second and took the World Cup points lead. Finn Kaisa Maekaeraeinen was 30.9 seconds out in third place.

Four North Americans raced. U.S. biathlete Jay Hakkinen moved up one place to 16th while Lowell Bailey was 29th and Tim Burke 37th. Among the women, Canadian Sandra Keith was 53rd.

Since the men’s race didn’t start until 3:15 p.m. CET, Greis was able to sleep late and grab some extra rest. He miss one shot from the final standing stage and won in 36:23.4 with Maxim Tchoudov of Russia runner-up, as he was Saturday in the 10 km sprint. As he came to the finish, Greis took a flag from someone along the track and showed his jubilation.

“I wanted to take my time on the finishing straight. That was pure pleasure.” Greis said. There is hardly anything better than that. After all, that was my first double victory. And it was in my hometown. That‚s sheer lunacy. That‚ll give me a real boost for the coming weeks.

“Yesterday I was baked after the race. I slept late this morning. It was a strange feeling, all alone at the range for the final shooting,” he said. “A double victory at home – crazy!”

His victory double for the weekend lifted Greis into fourth place overall. After 11 races, Bjoerndalen has 425 points to 367 for Russian Dmitri Yaoshenko.

Hakkinen said, “You always want more, but this was still good. I moved up. I am still trying to get used to being in these fast races [after several sub-par competitions several weeks ago’. It’s nice to be consistent again.”

Wilhelm, noting the pressure for a German to win in Germany is immense, has 349 points after 11 races. Teammate Martina Glagow, who was 15th Sunday, is second with 343. Rogstad’s win boosted her to 15th overall.

Full results.