
Australia’s best-ever Olympic result: 8th place by Kerryn Rim in the Women 15 km Individual race at Lillehammer in 1994, ref: biathlonworld.com
While we wait to see if our Olympic hopefuls may be offered a Wild Card at PyeongChang 2018, we take a look at our best Winter Olympic Games results, since Australia first participated at Olympic Winter Games in 1984.
Australia’s best-ever biathlete is Ms Kerryn Rim (Pethybridge) from North East Victoria, who attended three Olympic Winter Games, namely the 1992 (Albertville), 1994 (Lillehammer) and 1998 (Nagano) Games.
At Albertville, Kerryn finished 32nd in the 15 km Women Individual, and 39th in the Women 7.5 km Sprint.
At Lillehammer 1994, Kerryn finished 21st in the Women Sprint. Her result in the Women Individual remains the best Australian Olympic result ever: Kerryn missed two targets and finished in eighth place behind winner Canadian Myriam Bedard, just one missed target away from a Winter Olympic bronze medal.
At Nagano 1998, Kerryn finished 43rd in the Women Individual and 47th in the Women Sprint.
Ms Sandra Paintin Paul (originally from New Zealand and subsequently from Victoria) achieved the next highest results at the Winter Olympics for Australia, with a 40th place in the Women 15 km Individual at Albertville in 1992 and 54th in the Women 7.5 km Sprint, repeating her 40th place at the 1994 Lillehammer Games, but this time in the Women Sprint and coming 64th in the Women Individual.
There are equal numbers of races at International Biathlon Union/Olympic Winter Games events for Men and Women, with the PyeongChang 2018 races being: Sprint, Pursuit (top 60 athletes from the Sprint), Individual (Distance), Mass Start (top 30 athletes), Mixed Relay (2 Men, 2 Women), Women Relay and Men Relay.
The first event at PyeongChang 2018 is the Women 7.5 km Sprint on 8 February, the full Olympic race schedule is under the Datacenter tab at http://www.biathlonworld.com/