Lora Hristova wins Olympic biathlon bronze at Milan–Cortina 2026

Bulgarian biathlete Lora Hristova won bronze in the women’s 15 km individual race, delivering her country's second medal of the Olympic games.

The 22-year-old girl from Bulgaria's Troyan achieved a perfect score of 20 out of 20 at the Antholz-Anterselva range, securing the biggest success of her career. Only France’s Julia Simon and Lou Jeanmonnot finished ahead of her, despite incurring one and two penalties respectively; they made up for this with faster skiing times.

Hristova finished 1 minute 4.5 seconds behind the new Olympic champion, Simon, who won by a margin of 53.1 seconds over Jeanmonnot.

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Bulgaria's Lora Hristova deservedly won the Olympic medal, which is the eighth for Bulgaria at the Winter Games and the third in biathlon after Ekaterina Dafovska's gold in Nagano in 1998 and Irina Nikulchina's bronze in Salt Lake City in 2002.

Bulgaria's Milena Todorova is 59th after six misses at the shooting range, Valentina Dimitrova is 73rd with two errors, and Maria Zdravkova with 6 inaccurate shots finished in 76th place out of 90 starters.

Edited by Miglena Ivanova