Anna Carin Olofsson-Zidek starts women’s biathlon race 14 seconds late because of error

Official’s error costs biathlete 14 seconds

WHISTLER, British Columbia — A race official’s error cost Swedish biathlete Anna Carin Olofsson-Zidek valuable time — 14 long seconds — in the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit.

Olofsson-Zidek crossed the finish line in sixth place Tuesday. But she was bumped up to fourth when officials realized she had been inadvertently held up at the beginning of the race, and the 14 seconds were shaved off her time.

The biathlon pursuit features staggered starts based on finish times from the previous event.

With the adjustment, Olofsson-Zidek finished 11.1 seconds out of the bronze medal, won by France’s Marie Laure Brunet.

Oloffson-Zidek was supposed to begin her race just seven seconds behind No. 17 Liudmila Kalinchik of Belarus, the racer directly in front of her in the second of three lanes.

As the seconds continued to tick off, Olofsson-Zidek, in bib No. 20, said she started to panic.

“I said, ‘Fourteen seconds, I’m not that far behind the girl starting ahead of me,” Olofsson-Zidek recounted. “And I was looking and then they said, ‘Start No. 23′ on the watch.”

The two racers directly behind Olofsson-Zidek, No. 23 Valj Semerenko of the Ukraine, and No. 26 Simone Hauswald of Germany, were awarded seven-second bumps in their finishing times because of the mistake.

This sort of error has happened even at World Cup competitions, but nobody associated with biathlon could recall it happening at an Olympic Games.

Olofsson-Zidek said the error affected her performance at the start of the race.

“I got a little stressed in the beginning of the first loop, but then I calmed down and thought, ‘OK, they did wrong. They have to fix it. They have to make up,’” she said.

Team spokesman Bjoern Folin said Swedish officials had lodged a protest but withdrew it after the 14 seconds was shaved off her time.

“The race officials said they’d made a mistake and apologized. There was no reason to take it any further, we have nothing else to gain from it,” Folin said. “And Anna Carin said she didn’t think it affected her result.”

After the first loop, Olofsson-Zidek said she had put the blunder behind her.

“I did a very good race today, and I’m very satisfied with it,” Olofsson-Zidek said. “Too bad it was 10 seconds too slow.”

Of course, there’s no telling if she would have finished higher than fourth place had she not been forced to wait.

Might she have caught Brunet for the bronze?

“I don’t know, I doubt it,” Olofsson-Zidek said. “I don’t know.”

Olofsson-Zidek is married to Canadian wax technician Tom Zidek, and so she’s very close to the Canadian team.

“Frankly, that stinks,” Canadian biathlete Megan Tanday said when told of the official’s timing error. “Anna is a super-experienced amazing athlete, so I’m sure she’s able to not stress about it, do her race. Stuff happens, that’s life, right? We’re humans, not machines. So, volunteers make mistakes, athletes make mistakes, coaches make mistakes.”

Olofsson-Zidek said her memories of skiing in her husband’s native country won’t be soiled by this blunder, however.

“I’m moving on,” she said. “There’s some more races left.”