Victories for Bjoerndalen and Makarainen in Ostersund (Roundup)

Dec 5, 2010, 14:12 GMT

Ostersund, Sweden - Ole-Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway stayed on his feet to claim victory in Sunday's 12.5-kilometre pursuit for his first victory of the biathlon World Cup season.

In the women's 10km pursuit, Kaisa Makarainen of Finland followed up on the first World Cup success of her career in the sprint with a dominant victory.

Bjoerndalen crashed late in Friday's sprint to gift victory to compatriot Emil Hegle Svendsen but made no mistakes this time around as he sealed his success in a time of 35 minutes, 47.7 seconds with three missed targets in the range, one fewer than Svendsen.

World Cup title holder Svendsen was neck-and-neck with Bjoerndalen until the final round of shooting but missed two targets and eventually came home 26.2 seconds adrift of his 36-year-old team- mate.

Jakov Fak of Slovenia also missed three targets on his way to his first podium finish of the season, 1:00.7 minutes behind Svendsen.

Svendsen, who had won the first two season races, tops the World Cup with 174 points. Bjoerndalen has 168 after his 92nd career win in the sport.

Earlier, Makarainen once again produced flawless shooting to win in a time of 31:57.1 minutes, finishing 1:25.3 clear of Germany's Miriam Goessner, who had to ski three penalty loops after missing three targets in the shooting range.

Helena Ekholm of Sweden came home in third place, 1:41.5 behind Makarainen after missing two targets.

Anna Carin Olofsson-Zidek could only manage fourth and loses top spot in the World Cup standings to Makarainen, who leads the standings with 150 points after 3 of 26 events.

Ekholm moves up to second on 136 points, one clear of Olofsson- Zidek.

The biathlon World Cup season continues on December 10 in Hochfilzen, Austria, with men's and women's sprint races.

Read more about Biathlon WorldCup

Read more about Sweden