The Frenchman produced an impressive display that included a perfect 20 for 20 shooting round on his way to finishing 13.1 seconds ahead of Russian Anton Shipulin and 30.1 seconds in front of Dmitry Malyshko, also of Russia.

Fourcade, along with Austrian Simon Eder and the ever-present Ole Einar Bjørndalen of Norway, led the chasing pack at the start of the first prone stage before he began to stretch his lead after shooting clean, and that pattern continued for the majority of the race.

Malyshko was 27.9 seconds behind the Frenchman and Germany's Erik Lesser was also still in with a chance of claiming a surprise win, but Fourcade's trademark patient shooting meant he eased to a comfortable victory.

Krasimir Anev of Bulgaria finished in a personal best fourth place, Czech Republic's Michal Šlesingr was fifth and Andrejs Rastorgujevs of Latvia was sixth.

In the women's 12.5km race, Belarusian Darya Domracheva recovered from three prone penalties to finish in front of Veronika Vítková of the Czech Republic and Tiril Eckhoff of Norway.

Darya Domracheva claimed victory in the women's event despite amassing three prone penalties ©Getty Images



Domracheva, meanwhile, had to work much harder to earn a comeback win, although she did lead from the front alongside Finnish athlete Kaisa Mäkäräinen, who eventually finished fourth, as the first prone stage got underway.

Mäkäräinen shot clean and was on Domracheva's shoulder as they entered the stadium, but once again everything changed as they got to the first standing stage.

Jana Gereková of Slovakia cleaned to take the lead ahead of Vítková - who earned her first-ever World Cup win in the 7.5 kilometre sprint on Friday (January 9) - and at that point Domracheva was 16 seconds back.

But by the time they reached the final stage, she had edged in front once more, yet Gereková fought back.

With 500 metres to go, Domracheva made her move and she managed to hold off the chasing pack to seal a dramatic victory.

"Today was a good day for me and I never gave up," she said.

"I was very tired after the heavy races but it was important to be strong."

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