Biathlon-Greenland's Slettemark savours long-awaited Olympic debut

ANTERSELVA, ITALY, Feb 11 - Greenland-born biathlete Sondre Slettemark finally realised his dream of competing at the Olympics in Tuesday's punishing 20km individual race, and though it cost him every ounce of energy he had to make it over the finish line in 62nd place, he still beamed with pride.

The 21-year-old, who competes for Denmark at the Olympics as Greenland does not have its own Olympic committee, joins father Oystein and big sister Ukaleq among the ranks of the family's Olympians, and he finished eight minutes 13 seconds after winner Johan-Olav Botn of Norway.

"Shooting-wise, I should have hit at least one or two targets more, and skiing-wise it was not as good as I maybe hoped for, but it wasn't horrible either. But, yeah, I'm satisfied. I'm an Olympian now, I made it to the finish line, and I did pretty okay," he told Reuters, exhausted but still bursting with pride.

"(My father and sister) tried to prepare me, but I think nothing can really prepare you ... I tried to think of it as just being a normal World Cup race, but it's difficult to do that. I was so nervous before I start that I just wanted to get it over with, he explained.

"I did it, so now I stand here and I'm an Olympian, and I'm satisfied, and I think I can do better in the sprint."

Slettemark's maiden Olympic race was one of the toughest on the Milano Cortina program, consisting of five lung-bursting four-kilometre laps and four visits to the shooting range, alternating between shooting prone and standing, at a height of around 1600 metres above sea level.

"The first shooting was really good. I was super-focused, five really, really good shots. I said before start that I would try to focus on the first shot, because they were really difficult in the training yesterday because of the altitude," he explained.

"You really come in and you breathe as much as you can, but still, you come into the shooting range breathing like crazy, and I did that! All four shootings, I hit the first target - then, of course, I missed some of the rest, but the prone today was really strong."

Each of Sondre's three misses on the range instantly added a minute to his overall time as a penalty, but he has already put them behind him to focus on his next event, Friday's 10km sprint race, and possible qualification for Sunday's 12.5km pursuit.

"If I shoot 10 of 10 in the sprint and have a little bit better ski time, then I think it's still possible (to make the pursuit). I haven't lost hope yet, so yeah, we'll see. I get home and rest and eat and sleep and and try to do it all over again on Friday."

Wherever he finishes up, Slettemark has been delighted with the support that his Olympic exploits have had from fans back home in Greenland.

"It's been amazing. I've had so many people messaging me, saying 'good luck', and then that they cheer for me and that they're so happy," he enthused.

"I mean, it's a cliche - people always say I couldn't have done it without my fans, but it's really so nice having so many people cheering for us here at the Olympics. It's truly an amazing feeling." REUTERS