ROSA KHUTOR — Frenchman Martin Fourcade was near-flawless on the track and the shooting range as he charged to men's 12.5-kilometer biathlon pursuit gold at the Sochi Olympics on Monday.
It is the first Olympic gold for Fourcade, who has been crushingly dominant at every major competition over the last two seasons and won Olympic silver in the mass start at Vancouver 2010.
Fourcade missed one shot over four shooting stages on his way to taking gold by 14.1 seconds from Czech Ondrej Moravec, who shot clean but was slower on his skis.
Just 1.7 seconds separated Norwegian veteran Ole Einar Bjoerndalen from a Winter Olympic-record 13th medal as he finished fourth behind Frenchman Jean Guillaume Beatrix.
Bjoerndalen won the 10-kilometer sprint Saturday.
