The Men's 20 kilometre individual biathlon competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics was held on 11 February, at Soldier Hollow. Competitors raced over five loops of a 4.0 kilometre skiing course, shooting four times, twice prone and twice standing. Each miss resulted in one minute being added to a competitor's skiing time.

Results

Raphaël Poirée was defending overall World Cup champion, while Sergei Rozhkov was the defending World Cup champion in the individual race. Paavo Puurunen had won the most recent world championships, and Halvard Hanevold had won the 1998 Olympic title. Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who had finished just behind Poirée in the overall world cup, had dominated the test event in 2001, winning all three races, including the individual, beating Sven Fischer.World Cup 7 - 20 km Individual Results from biathlonworld.com, retrieved 6 February 2013 Frank Luck led the World Cup in the Individual entering the Games, having won one of the warmup events, with Pavel Rostovtsev and Daniel Mesotitsch winning the others.

Bjørndalen, having just placed 5th in the 30 kilometre cross-country race, was the earliest of the favourites to start. He missed once on both his second and third shoots, but still had the fastest time, just ahead of Viktor Maigourov, who had missed only once. Neither would miss on the last shoot, but over the final two loops, Bjørndalen would gain more than 30 seconds on the Russian, easily taking the early lead. Poirée was ahead of Bjørndalen with only a single miss on the first three shots, but faded after missing a shot on the last set, ending up 10th. Rozkhov shot clear, but struggled with his skiing, unable to get anywhere near the leaders with his pace on the snow, and ending up 12th.- Competition Analysis, Men's 20 km Individual - SLOC

Just behind him, Ricco Groß was level with Bjørndalen early, and while he did record one of the faster ski times, his two misses meant he finished nearly a minute behind, in third for the time being. Like Rozkhov, Frank Luck also shot clear, and after Bjørndalen's second miss, he was ahead of the Norwegian by 23 seconds. He couldn't match the Norwegian's ski time over the final section, though, ending up just ahead of Maigurov in silver medal position. Hanevold was another who shot clear, but ended up 5th. Frode Andresen, the last starter, and the closest to matching Bjørndalen in ski pace, was ahead of his countryman by 90 seconds after the third shoot, having been clear to that point, but then missed three on the final shoot, sending him all the way down to 7th and securing Bjørndalen's victory. "It was worse to stand here watching Frode shoot than shoot myself," Bjørndalen said.

The race was started at 13:30.Final results Rank Bib Name Country Result Penalties (P+S+P+S) Deficit 26 Ole Einar Bjørndalen 51:03.3 2 (0+1+1+0) 77 Frank Luck 51:39.4 0 (0+0+0+0) 28 Viktor Maigourov 51:40.61 (0+0+1+0) 53 Ricco Groß 51:58.7 2 (0+1+0+1) 78 Halvard Hanevold 52:16.3 0 (0+0+0+0)+1:13.0 39 Pavel Rostovtsev 52:33.5 1 (0+1+0+0)+1:30.2 87 Frode Andresen 52:39.1 3 (0+0+0+3)+1:35.8 11 Sergei Tchepikov 52:44.2 1 (0+0+0+1)+1:40.9 50 Vadim Sashurin 52:52.6 0 (0+0+0+0)+1:49.3 10 31 Raphaël Poirée 52:52.9 2 (0+1+0+1)+1:49.6 11 12 Ludwig Gredler 53:19.3 2 (2+0+0+0)+2:16.0 12 52 Sergei Rozhkov 53:43.8 0 (0+0+0+0)+2:40.5 13 67 Marko Dolenc 53:45.8 2 (0+0+1+1)+2:42.5 14 48 Jeremy Teela 53:56.5 2 (1+1+0+0)+2:53.2 15 4 Paavo Puurunen 54:15.7 3 (1+1+0+1)+3:12.4 16 61 Egil Gjelland 54:16.1 2 (0+0+0+2)+3:12.8 17 27 Alexei Aidarov 54:25.3 3 (1+0+2+0)+3:22.0 18 49 Tomaž Globočnik 54:40.6 1 (0+1+0+0)+3:37.3 19 55 Vesa Hietalahti 54:47.0 2 (0+0+0+2)+3:43.7 20 15 Kyoji Suga 54:51.9 2 (0+0+2+0)+3:48.6 21 40 René Cattarinussi 54:57.2 2 (0+1+0+1)+3:53.9 22 36 Christoph Sumann 55:00.3 3 (0+1+0+2)+3:57.0 23 62 Vyacheslav Derkach 55:01.3 1 (0+0+0+1)+3:58.0 24 84 Ruslan Lysenko 55:02.1 2 (1+1+0+0)+3:58.8 25 43 Petr Garabík 55:12.2 2 (1+1+0+0)+4:08.9 26 14 Jay Hakkinen 55:13.8 3 (0+2+0+1)+4:10.5 27 47 Andriy Deryzemlia 55:14.8 1 (0+1+0+0)+4:11.5 28 34 Robin Clegg 55:17.5 2 (0+1+0+1)+4:14.2 29 60 Sven Fischer 55:23.2 4 (1+1+1+1)+4:19.9 30 75 Wiesław Ziemianin 55:35.2 1 (0+0+0+1)+4:31.9 31 23 Oleg Ryzhenkov 55:56.6 4 (0+1+1+2)+4:53.3 32 64 Wolfgang Perner 56:00.4 5 (0+2+0+3)+4:57.1 33 3 Paolo Longo 56:11.9 1 (0+1+0+0)+5:08.6 34 30 Alexander Wolf 56:16.6 5 (1+2+0+2)+5:13.3358 Roman Dostál 56:19.6 4 (0+1+0+3)+5:16.3 35 82 Jēkabs Nākums 56:19.6 1 (0+0+0+1)+5:16.3 37 58 Vincent Defrasne 56:20.3 3 (1+1+0+1)+5:17.0 38 35 Björn Ferry 56:20.7 4 (2+1+0+1)+5:17.4 39 56 Ilmārs Bricis 56:24.4 3 (0+2+1+0)+5:21.1 40 79 Carl Johan Bergman 56:24.5 3 (1+1+1+0)+5:21.2 41 69 Timo Antila 56:33.5 3 (1+1+1+0)+5:30.2 42 81 Ivan Masařík 56:40.6 3 (1+1+0+1)+5:37.3 43 17 Janez Marič 56:51.9 5 (0+3+0+2)+5:48.6 44 37 Hidenori Isa 56:52.8 4 (0+1+2+1)+5:49.5 45 80 Roland Lessing 57:08.4 3 (2+1+0+0)+6:05.1 46 54 Tomasz Sikora 57:08.5 4 (0+1+2+1)+6:05.2 47 71 Henrik Forsberg 57:22.0 6 (3+0+2+1)+6:18.7 48 65 Jason Sklenar 57:27.2 3 (0+1+1+1)+6:23.9 49 45 Dmitry Pantov 57:32.8 3 (1+2+0+0)+6:29.5 50 76 Wilfried Pallhuber 57:33.2 5 (0+2+1+2)+6:29.9 51 2 Marian Blaj 57:36.83 (1+1+0+1)+6:33.5 52 46 Marek Matiaško 57:37.8 4 (1+0+1+2)+6:34.5 53 66 Indrek Tobreluts 57:52.1 4 (1+1+0+2)+6:48.8 54 41 Julien Robert 57:54.0 3 (1+0+0+2)+6:50.7 55 22 Tord Wiksten 58:02.3 2 (0+1+0+1)+6:59.0 56 21 Dimitri Borovik 58:02.5 5 (0+2+1+2)+6:59.2 57 68 Zdeněk Vítek 58:07.9 6 (1+1+2+2)+7:04.6 58 33 Roland Zwahlen 58:10.6 4 (2+1+0+1)+7:07.3 59 29 Zhang Qing 58:13.9 4 (2+0+0+2)+7:10.6 60 70 Rustam Valiullin 58:46.7 6 (3+1+0+2)+7:43.4 61 72 Jean-Marc Chabloz 58:59.4 3 (1+2+0+0)+7:56.1 62 16 Liutauras Barila 59:02.3 4 (0+2+1+1)+7:59.0 63 24 Janno Prants 59:14.0 6 (0+2+3+1)+8:10.7 64 44 Daniel Mesotitsch 59:15.9 6 (2+0+2+2)+8:12.6 65 6 Georgi Kassabov 59:16.1 4 (2+1+0+1)+8:12.8 66 63 Hironao Meguro 59:29.2 3 (1+0+0+2)+8:25.9 67 51 Ville Räikkönen 59:34.2 4 (1+1+2+0)+8:30.9 68 20 Oleksandr Bilanenko 59:34.4 4 (0+2+0+2)+8:31.1 69 7 Wojciech Kozub 59:35.1 5 (2+0+1+2)+8:31.8 70 5 Imre Tagscherer 59:51.8 3 (1+0+0+2)+8:48.5 71 59 Gundars Upenieks 59:56.0 5 (2+0+3+0)+8:52.7 72 85 Rene Laurent Vuillermoz 6 (2+1+1+2)+8:57.4 73 42 Aleksandr Tropnikov 2 (0+1+1+0)+9:02.0 74 83 Krzysztof Topór 6 (0+4+0+2)+9:33.5 75 32 Shin Byung-kook 4 (1+2+1+0)+9:54.8 76 73 Dan Campbell 6 (2+1+2+1)+9:55.3 77 74 Ferréol Cannard 5 (1+1+1+2) 78 18 Matthias Simmen 6 (2+2+0+2) 79 38 Mike Dixon 5 (2+1+1+1) 80 1 Ricardo Oscare 6 (2+2+1+1) 81 19 Mark Gee 5 (0+2+2+1) 82 86 Janez Ožbolt 6 (1+2+2+1) 83 25 Žarko Galjanić 6 (0+2+1+3) 84 57 Mihail Gribuşencov 7 (2+2+1+2) 85 13 Stavros Khristoforidis 5 (2+1+0+2) 86 9 Carlos Varas 3 (0+1+1+1) 10 Oļegs Maļuhins 4 (1+2+1+ )

References