France's Marie Dorin claims shock Olympic bronze in biathlon sprint

AFP - Slovakia's Anastasiya Kuzmina won a shock Olympic gold medal on Saturday in the women's 7.5 km biathlon sprint, seeing off silver winner and favourite Magdalena Neuner of Germany.

Marie Dorin of France claimed bronze.

Russian-born Kuzmina, 25 and ranked only 28 in the world, crossed the line in 19min 55.6sec, stunning Neuner, who came in 1.5sec adrift after a tense dash for the line while Dorin finished at 10.9sec.

Anna Boulygina of Russia was fourth ahead of Kazakh Elena Khrustaleva.

Kuzmina, mass-start silver medalist last year, which heralded her arrival as a force to be reckoned with, turned in a flawless shooting round as she grabbed gold to succeed 2006 champion Florence Baverel of France, who has since retired.

Neuner had been heavily tipped to win but instead Kuzmina, who has just one World Cup podium this season, produced a superlative performance.

The new champion was helped by several other experienced names such as Swedish World Cup leader Helena Jonsson and Anna Carin Olofsson coming to grief with some poor shooting.