Olympedia – 7.5 kilometres Sprint, Women

Former Russian (now Slovakian) Anastasia Kuzmina repeated as gold medalist in a surprising biathlon sprint, as the favorites fell short, with pre-race contender Olga Vilukhina placing second for Russia. Several of the early favorites missed on the easier prone stage, as Tora Berger missed one shot, Darya Domracheva missed one shot, and Gabriela Soukalová even missed three. Domracheva and Berger were in the top three among the early skiers but were bumped down in the later stages. Kuzmina was the defending champion and shot cleanly to repeat. Vilukhina, who shot cleanly, clawed her way up the standings late in the race to earn her silver, the home Russian crowd roaring as she came in second. Ukraine’s Vita Semerenko finished strongly to win the bronze medal, only 1.8 seconds behind Semerenko.

That was how the results stood until the Oswald Commission and the release of the McLaren Report in December 2016. Three Russian skiiers were disqualified retroactively for doping - Yana Romanova, Olga Zaytseva, and Olga Vilukhina, with Vilukhina losing her silver medal. As of April 2019, it had not been re-allocated. However, in February 2020, Vilukhina was reinstated after an appeal to CAS and her silver medal was restored.