Jonsson was nearly perfect on the shooting range, save a single penalty in the second prone stage, while Olofsson-Zidek had two penalties, in the first and second standing stages. Third place tonight went to Darya Domracheva of Belarus, with two penalties, 1:16.6 back.

Rounding out the top eight were Russia’s Svetlana Sleptsova in fourth, followed by Ukrainians Valj Semerenko and Oksana Khvostenko, Marie Laure Brunet of France, and Michaela Ponza of Italy. Semerenko and brunet were the only women in the top 8 to shoot clean today.

Second year in a Row

This was the second year in a row that Jonsson won the opening competition of the year in her hometown Östersund Ski stadium. Last year, she shot clean in her victory over Kati Wilhelm of Germany. Wilhelm finished 17^th today with 3 penalties, 2:25.3 back.

Golden Girl

Jonsson, now Sweden’s “Golden Girl,” as the media considers her Sweden’s “best chance for Gold in Vancouver.”  Accordingly, she has been in the media spotlight all week as this competition approached. In a Monday press conference with the Swedish Team, as the center of attention, she stayed relaxed and obliging to every request. Yesterday, she won the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal today for the most significant Swedish sports achievement of the year. Another press conference ensued, with cameras, tape recorders and microphones in her face for almost an hour. Again, even as her planned training time slipped away, Jonsson answered every question. Today, Jonsson admitted, “The award yesterday was very important and after I won it, I slept very well last night.” Besides the quiet of sleep time, she has been doing a few Christmas projects, adding “That has been a very good distraction.”

Nerves

Coming into today’s competition with a large Swedish television audience watching, and about 8,000 Östersund residents in the stands, Jonsson admitted, “I had some butterflies in my stomach. But they all went away after the first shooting. I was a bit shaky in that stage.” Asked how she kept calm during the competition, she replied, “When the race started, I just did the normal things and did not think about anything else.”

Swedish Team Leader Eklund knows that Jonsson has a few butterflies, with all of the attention, but said, “You have to have some of those or you will not compete at your best. . . Helena is very calm; it is part of her Swedish temperament.”

Unsure About Shooting

Her teammate, Olofsson-Zidek also admitted to a bit of nerves, but mostly because of her shooting. She said, “Right before the start, I was pretty relaxed, but the last two days, I have been pretty nervous; kind of crabby. My shooting in training has not been great, so I was a bit unsure of myself. But I did not make any changes today and it was Ok today, I think it was a bit of premiere nerves. You are always a bit unsure before the first race and you do not know exactly where you are.”

Yet, the 2006 Olympic Gold medalist’ second place today, with a fast ski time, confirmed Eklund’s comment of a few days ago when he said she was close to her 2006 shape. She added, “We have been training harder and I have trained a bit more.”

Jonsson agreed, stating, “I am that far ahead of the other girls (in today’s competition), because of Wolfgang’s (Pichler) training, maybe.”

Both Eklund and Pichler were happy with the results, but maybe a bit surprised as Eklund commented, “The end result surprised me. I knew they were in good shape. We expected two in the top ten, but not especially one-two. We had all of the pieces today; good shape, good shooting and good skis”

Fourth to Third

Domracheva, whose first podium appearance of her career was in the Ruhpolding Sprint last January, originally showed up in the results as fourth. She had cross-fired in the standing stage (which is a penalty, even if the target is hit), but instead of receiving a one-minute penalty, she was awarded a two-minute penalty. When her coach, Klaus Siebert brought this to the jury’s attention, the mistake was corrected, moving her to third place. Despite this, the young Belarusian woman was smiling and not upset about the initial mistake. Regarding her day, she said, “I did not know about the official’s mistake until I finished, so it was not a concern. I knew that I had cross-fired. Today was my first start of the season and although it was okay, I hope to be better as the season goes on.”

Race Was Perfect

After all of the pressure of the past few days and weeks, Helena Jonsson pulled it off today. She won in front of the home crowd and met everyone’s expectations. Although she was one shot from being perfect on the shooting range, she closed with, “My race was perfect.” And for a follow-up, “I will try to do another good race.” But not forgetting the expectations of the media and her fans, “Every race is important but I think the Olympics are just a little bit higher.”

The pressure is off . . . until the next competition, anyway.