At first, no Olympic bronze medal was in sight for the Swedish men's biathlon team.
Starter Viktor Brandt had a weak start. In the first shooting round, he missed two shots, and despite using all three spare rounds, he was forced into a penalty loop.
This left Brandt alone in the field having to ski a penalty lap - 41 seconds behind Norway, who were leading.
“Completely shocked”
Afterwards, he had difficulty explaining what went wrong.
"I'm completely shocked. I don't understand why I'm missing; obviously I'm doing something wrong. It's sad and frustrating. I got very stressed," he says in SVT's broadcast.
When Jesper Nelin took over, Sweden was about a minute behind Norway.
Nelin escaped the penalty round, but lost time in the second shooting round when the spare rounds would not go in. Martin Ponsiluoma also struggled in the shooting and needed all three spare rounds in the prone to avoid a penalty loop.
“Wanted to test the body”
Before the final stretch, Sweden was still far down the field.
But then Sebastian Samuelsson took over.
With strong skiing and steady shooting, the Swede began to move up the field, while several competitors missed out on the podium. Samuelsson gained around 40 seconds and brought Sweden up from seventh place into contention for the podium.
"I was eager to do a good race. I wanted to test my body properly. I thought that the chance was there, but then the USA, above all, had to do something a little bit better and they did."
Giant's claw
On the last lap, he decided the battle for third place when he pulled away from his competitors.
Samuelsson led Sweden across the finish line in third place, 48 seconds behind the winners, and took the opportunity to apologize to the Finnish crowd at the finish line. Finland was one of the teams he passed in pursuit of the podium.
"It was a great atmosphere going out on the sprint lap when everyone was shouting and cheering for Finland there. I would have given them that, but I'd rather be on the podium," says Samuelsson.
Norway took home the victory ahead of France.
