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Flawless Henkel completes biathlon world title grand slam

Society Materials 10 February 2008 16:24 (UTC +04:00)

( dpa ) - Andrea Henkel of Germany was flawless again on Sunday to complete a rare grand slam of biathlon world titles.

Henkel, 30, hit all 20 targets in the shooting range to add the pursuit title over 10 kilometres to the sprint gold from Saturday, finishing ahead of Russians Ekaterina Ioureva and Albina Akhatova.

The two Ostersund titles go with mass start gold in 2007 and a 15km crown in 2005, meaning Henkel has now won every individual event at the worlds.

She was also part of Germany's winning relay team in 2007 and has Olympic gold from 2006 in the 15km and relay.

"It all looked cooler than it was. I was quite tense in the final shooting. I tried to ski a normal race," said Henkel.

The German clocked 28 minutes 56.0 seconds for victory in the 10km race which she entered first by virtue of the sprint crown. Henkel has not missed one of the 30 targets in the two races.

Ioureva shot from ninth at the start to second, trailing by 20.5 seconds. Akhatova added bronze to sprint silver, 38.5 seconds off the pace.

The men's pursuit was scheduled for later Sunday.

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