OSLO — Martin Fourcade of France won the 20-kilometre individual race in the biathlon World Cup, and Kaisa Makarainen of Finland the women’s 15-kilometre event on Thursday.
Evgeniy Garanichev of Russia was 14.2 seconds behind Fourcade in second, and Sergey Semenov of Ukraine finished third 48.8 seconds back, as fog gave way to a clear afternoon at Holmenkollen.
Fourcade was not in the lead until the second prone stage.
"It was not easy to start with the pressure of starting with bib No. 1. My mind was in a training mode," he said. "It was a battle against myself all day … but I enjoyed the competition."
Garanichev, on the podium for the fifth time at Holmenkollen, said, "I like the atmosphere here. It is a good place for me."
Calgary’s Nathan Smith missed just one shot in his final of four rounds of shooting to finish in a time of 54:05.3 — his best ever individual race result.
"It actually wasn’t an easy day on the skis. The snow conditions were some of the most difficult I’ve experienced," Smith said. "I felt kind of tired, and not as strong as last weekend. The snow was breaking apart and getting very deep and sugary, which made it quite the grunt."
Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., was 44th and Calgary’s Scott Gow was 60th.
Makarainen led the women’s individual race all the way and shot clean. She was unchallenged.
Darya Domracheva of Belarus was second, more than 78 seconds behind with one penalty. Veronika Vitkova of Czech Republic shot clean and was third.
Megan Heinicke of Prince George, B.C., shot clean to finish 12th.
Rosanna Crawford of Canmore, Alta., was 28th while Quebec City’s Audrey Vaillancourt earned a career-best 30th-place finish.