Team Norway broke its own gold medal record at a single Winter Olympics when Johannes Dale-Skjevdal hit all 20 of his targets in the 15-kilometer mass start biathlon race and skied his way to gold. It was Norway’s 17th gold medal of the Milano Cortina Winter Games.
Norway set the previous record at the 2022 Beijing Olympics with 16 gold medals.
Dale-Skjevdal had taken the lead after the first standing bout with clean shooting and completed the five laps on newly packed snow amid gusty winds in 39 minutes, 17.1 seconds. His teammate, Sturla Holm Laegreid, only missed one target and finished 10.5 seconds back for silver — his fifth medal of these Olympic Games.
David J. Phillip / AP 
Philipp Horn of Germany only missed one target on his last shooting bout and left the range in third place, but Quentin Fillon Maillet of France, who missed four on the day, chased Horn and passed him on a big hill, taking him to the finish for a bronze, 25.6 seconds behind Dale-Skjevdal.
Fillon Maillet, who was on the gold medal-winning team in the mixed relay and men’s relay, also won gold in the sprint.
Only the top 30 biathletes compete in the mass start race, based on World Cup rankings and Olympic performance. They ski five, 3-kilometer loops, shooting twice in the prone position and twice standing.
Currently, Norway leads the medal count with 37 — including the 17 golds. Team USA is in second place with 27 medals (9 golds) and host Italy rounds up the top three with 27 medals.
Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo has earned the most gold medals at the Milano Cortina Games. The 29-year-old came into the games with five gold medals and he has added five more to his tally. He is now the second-most decorated gold medalist in Olympic history after American Michael Phelps.
