Comeback Kati wins at home

Ten-for-ten shooting by Norway's Linda Tjoerhom could do little against the top two as she finished third, 54.7 seconds behind Wilhelm.

Saturday was Wilhelm's 11th career win following her victory at Hochfilzen, Austria in the sprint event nearly one month ago when she did not miss a single target. Saturday she had to rely on her skiing skills.

Wearing bib No. 2, Olofsson applied early pressure by clearing all targets in Shoot 1, clocking the third fastest running time, then speeding toward the standing shoot.

Wilhelm was three seconds ahead of Olofsson's time after 800 metres, but paid for her efforts when she missed a target and was forced to take a penalty loop. She then whittled down the Swede's 13-second lead to below nine seconds before Shoot 2.

32-year-old Olofsson completed her perfect score card when she made all five standing shots, forcing Wilhelm to do the same in order to stay in the race. And that is exactly what the German did. After pushing herself to her limits, Wilhelm managed to hit her five targets and leave the range five seconds ahead of Olofsson's time.

Surprisingly the Swede lost the race while shooting to perfection. Her accuracy cost her time as she was 11 seconds slower than Wilhelm while shooting, but on the course the 29-year-old German was only slightly faster.

Wilhelm held on in the end with help of the thousands of supporters in the stadium. She thus comforted her World Cup lead over her Swedish rival to eight points, while third place Russian Svetlana Ishmouratova finished seventh with another consistent result.

Local favourite and World Cup Sprint leader Uschi Disl had a troublesome day on the range as she missed two targets at each shooting, but clocked the second fastest course time behind Wilhelm to finish eighth. She has fallen to second place behind her team-mate in the Sprint standings, trailing by four points.