Neuner rehabilitates herself, Zaitseva claims 8th podium in-a-row

Two-time Olympic champion Magdalena Neuner has bounced back from Wednesday’s relay fiasco to claim a women's sprint biathlon World Cup event in Germany’s Oberhof.

The World Cup overall leader was perfect both at shooting and skiing and won the race by a large margin, washing away her guilt in front of the home crowd after queering the pitch for her team two days ago.The German star covered the 7.5 kilometers in 22 minutes, 27.6 seconds, leaving World Cup rivals Darya Domracheva of Belarus and Russian Olga Zaitseva behind.Neuner collected her 27th career victory and the third sprint win in her final season, while for Zaitseva it was the eighth podium in a row.Having missed one shot each, Zaitseva’s teammates Olga Vilukhina and Svetlana Sleptsova settled for 10th and 13th respectively.“The team did very well tonight,” the Russian Biathlon Union website quotes head coach Wolfgang Pichler as saying. “Three of our girls showed good results as Russia maintained their lead in the Cup of Nations. “As for Zaitseva, she has shown an outstanding performance. She is in good shape now despite having caught cold during the NY holidays. She could have shown a better result though, but she had to start the race very late.”