Biathlon at the 1980 Winter Olympics – Individual

The Men's 20 kilometre individual biathlon competition took place during the 1980 Winter Olympics on February 16 at the Lake Placid Olympic Sports Complex Cross Country Biathlon Center. Biathlon is a thrilling winter sport that combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. In this event, athletes skied a long distance and stopped to shoot at targets with their rifles.

If a shooter missed the target, they had to add two minutes to their total time as a penalty. If they hit only the outer circle of the target, the penalty was just one minute. This made precision very important, as every shot could change the outcome of the race. The competition tested both the endurance of the skiers and the accuracy of their shooting.

Results

Anatoly Alyabyev made a surprising debut at Lake Placid. Although his skiing time was only the 10th best, he won the competition because he was the only one to hit all his targets perfectly. Frank Ullrich skied very fast, the fastest by more than 30 seconds, but he lost some time due to three penalties and took the silver medal. Eberhard Rösch finished with the bronze medal, having two minutes of penalties. Only Anatoly Alyabyev finished in under 1 hour and 10 minutes without any penalties. World champion Klaus Siebert skied well but faced six minutes in penalties, finishing in 15th place.

Rank	Bib	Name	Country	Ski Time	Penalties	Result	Deficit
	42	Anatoly Alyabyev	Soviet Union	1:08:16.31	0 (0+0+0+0)	1:08:16.31	–
	37	Frank Ullrich	East Germany	1:05:27.79	3 (1+0+1+1)	1:08:27.79	+11.48
	4	Eberhard Rösch	East Germany	1:09:11.73	2 (2+0+0+0)	1:11:11.73	+2:55.42
4	13	Svein Engen	Norway	1:08:30.25	3 (0+2+0+1)	1:11:30.25	+3:13.94
5	16	Erkki Antila	Finland	1:07:32.32	4 (0+2+1+1)	1:11:32.32	+3:16.01
6	44	Yvon Mougel	France	1:08:33.60	3 (1+0+1+1)	1:11:33.60	+3:17.29
7	29	Vladimir Barnashov	Soviet Union	1:07:49.49	4 (2+0+2+0)	1:11:49.49	+3:33.18
8	7	Vladimir Alikin	Soviet Union	1:06:05.30	6 (1+3+2+0)	1:12:05.30	+3:48.99
9	10	André Geourjon	France	1:10:53.37	2 (0+1+0+1)	1:12:53.37	+4:37.06
10	45	Arduino Tiraboschi	Italy	1:11:06.05	2 (1+1+0+0)	1:13:06.05	+4:49.74
11	15	Ronnie Adolfsson	Sweden	1:08:10.90	5 (2+0+1+2)	1:13:10.90	+4:54.59
12	21	Sören Wikström	Sweden	1:08:13.34	5 (4+0+1+0)	1:13:13.34	+4:57.03
13	49	Sigleif Johansen	Norway	1:11:20.12	2 (0+0+0+2)	1:13:20.12	+5:03.81
14	30	Zdeněk Hák	Czechoslovakia	1:09:33.76	4 (2+0+1+1)	1:13:33.76	+5:17.45
15	27	Klaus Siebert	East Germany	1:07:48.71	6 (2+0+0+4)	1:13:48.71	+5:32.40
16	3	Keith Oliver	Great Britain	1:12:02.30	2 (0+2+0+0)	1:14:02.30	+5:45.99
17	8	Siegfried Dockner	Austria	1:10:35.28	4 (0+1+0+3)	1:14:35.28	+6:18.97
18	39	Heikki Ikola	Finland	1:10:02.16	5 (2+0+1+2)	1:15:02.16	+6:45.85
19	19	Adriano Darioli	Italy	1:10:11.22	5 (0+1+0+4)	1:15:11.22	+6:54.91
20	33	Denis Sandona	France	1:13:21.01	2 (2+0+0+0)	1:15:21.01	+7:04.70
21	14	Angelo Carrara	Italy	1:12:31.89	3 (2+1+0+0)	1:15:31.89	+7:15.58
22	36	Peter Zelinka	Czechoslovakia	1:09:36.40	6 (1+0+5+0)	1:15:36.40	+7:20.09
23	24	Odd Lirhus	Norway	1:07:39.41	8 (1+2+0+5)	1:15:39.41	+7:23.10
24	31	Alfred Eder	Austria	1:11:44.28	4 (2+2+0+0)	1:15:44.28	+7:27.97
25	46	Jim Wood	Great Britain	1:12:45.37	3 (0+0+2+1)	1:15:45.37	+7:29.06
26	38	Rudolf Horn	Austria	1:10:03.83	6 (0+3+1+2)	1:16:03.83	+7:47.52
27	23	Peter Angerer	West Germany	1:08:07.60	8 (3+2+1+2)	1:16:07.60	+7:51.29
28	5	Masaichi Kinoshita	Japan	1:14:21.46	2 (0+2+0+0)	1:16:21.46	+8:05.15
29	35	Alois Kanamüller	West Germany	1:11:34.80	6 (2+3+0+1)	1:17:34.80	+9:18.49
30	6	Gerd Winkler	West Germany	1:10:48.57	7 (3+0+2+2)	1:17:48.57	+9:32.26
31	40	Sven Fahlén	Sweden	1:09:49.23	8 (0+3+1+4)	1:17:49.23	+9:32.92
32	2	Raimo Seppänen	Finland	1:13:15.67	6 (0+2+1+3)	1:19:15.67	+10:59.36
33	18	Graeme Ferguson	Great Britain	1:12:53.98	7 (1+1+0+5)	1:19:53.98	+11:37.67
34	47	Urs Brechbühl	Switzerland	1:11:59.13	8 (1+2+0+5)	1:19:59.13	+11:42.82
35	28	Marjan Burgar	Yugoslavia	1:14:11.68	6 (0+4+0+2)	1:20:11.68	+11:55.37
36	1	Martin Hagen	United States	1:13:02.95	8 (0+4+4+0)	1:21:02.95	+12:46.64
37	17	Roland Burn	Switzerland	1:10:12.97	11 (0+4+1+6)	1:21:12.97	+12:56.66
38	25	Glen Jobe Jr.	United States	1:15:36.52	6 (1+0+0+5)	1:21:36.52	+13:20.21
39	20	Hiroyuki Deguchi	Japan	1:14:53.16	7 (1+0+2+4)	1:21:53.16	+13:36.85
40	22	Yuri Mitev	Bulgaria	1:11:58.06	10 (2+4+3+1)	1:21:58.06	+13:41.75
41	41	Tsusumisa Kikuchi	Japan	1:13:44.30	11 (6+1+1+3)	1:24:44.30	+16:27.99
42	12	Josef Skalník	Czechoslovakia	1:11:17.13	15 (1+5+2+7)	1:26:17.13	+18:00.82
43	48	Vladimir Velichkov	Bulgaria	1:09:57.24	18 (7+9+1+1)	1:27:57.24	+19:40.93
44	9	Ying Zhenshan	China	1:15:47.00	13 (3+5+3+2)	1:28:47.00	+20:30.69
45	34	Johnny Ruger	United States	1:12:30.80	21 (8+4+6+3)	1:33:30.80	+25:14.49
46	26	Wang Yumjie	China	1:17:49.77	16 (2+2+6+6)	1:33:49.77	+25:33.46
47	43	Luis Ríos	Argentina	1:34:26.50	21 (4+5+4+8)	1:55:26.50	+47:10.19
	11	Jorge Salas	Argentina	DNF
	32	Raúl Abella	Argentina	DNF