First Olympic individual biathlon race: Top finishers and Ukraine’s showing

Lineup before the race

Ukraine could enter four athletes in the individual race, and the coaching staff chose: Dmytro Pidruchnyi, Vitalii Mandzyn, Anton Dudchenko, and Taras Lesiuk.

For Pidruchnyi and Mandzyn, this was their second race at these Olympics – earlier, they helped the team finish eighth in the mixed relay. Lesiuk made his Olympic debut, while Dudchenko had previous Olympic experience.

Ukraine’s best historical result in the Olympic individual race belongs to Pidruchnyi, 18th place at the 2022 Beijing Games.

This season, Mandzyn has been the most consistent in this discipline, ranking 30th in the individual World Cup standings and recently finishing 15th at the Nové Město stage.

Pidruchnyi did not compete in individual World Cup races this season. Lesiuk finished in the points once (36th), and Dudchenko finished outside the top 50 twice.

How the Ukrainians raced and shot

The best result among Ukrainians came from team captain Pidruchnyi. He cleared three of the four shooting stages without misses, but the second shooting proved decisive, where he incurred three penalty minutes.

Despite significant time losses, the captain maintained his pace and finished 18th, repeating his result from the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Mandzyn came close to an even better result. He approached the final shooting stage with only two penalty minutes and was still in contention for a spot near the top 20. However, two more misses at the last stage dropped him further down the standings, and he finished 28th, still inside the top 30.

Dudchenko and Lesiuk could not challenge for high positions. Dudchenko finished 35th, while Lesiuk, who had four misses, did not make it into the top 60.

Who won the race

The Olympic champion was Norway’s Johan-Ölve Botn. He delivered perfect shooting, hitting all 20 targets, and finished almost 15 seconds ahead of the nearest competitor, World Cup overall leader Éric Perrot.

For Botn, this is his first Olympic medal, which was immediately gold.

The bronze medal went to another Norwegian, Sturla Lægreid.

Biathlon – Men’s individual race results

• Johan-Ölve Botn (Norway, 0+0+0+0) – 51:31.5

• Éric Perrot (France, 0+1+0+0) – +14.8

• Sturla Lægreid (Norway, 0+0+1+0) – +48.3
  …18. Dmytro Pidruchnyi (Ukraine, 0+3+0+0) – +4:38.9
  …28. Vitalii Mandzyn (Ukraine, 0+1+1+2) – +5:23.5
  …35. Anton Dudchenko (Ukraine, 0+1+0+0) – +4:51.3
  …63. Taras Lesiuk (Ukraine, 1+2+0+1) – +9:00.0

Earlier, we shared the schedule of finals on February 10 at the 2026 Olympics.