Wierer closes gap to World Cup leader Soukalova

In a competition with numerous shooting errors, none of the top 11 competitors managed to shoot clean.

But their speed on the skis kept them in contention and Wierer was the fastest of them all to cross the line in 36:50 minutes.

The Italian recovered from an early penalty first up to shoot clean afterwards and eventually opened up a 20.8 second advantage over France's Marie Dorin Habert, who had been right in contention before then picking up a penalty in the closing stages to finish second on the day.

Soukalova also suffered the same fate and eventually came home 50.30 seconds behind Wierer.

However it was still enough for her to keep hold of the leaders bib on 763 points, although the gap to Wierer is now closed to 91 points.

Sportsbeat 2016