Norway\u2019s Sturla Holm Laegreid, the 28-year-old World Cup winner and known as one of the best biathletes in the world, took bronze in the individual 20km race for his first Olympic medal.<\/p>\n
But Laegreid, during a live interview with state broadcaster NRK, followed up his success by opening up on his torment, acknowledging he was committing \u201csocial suicide\u201d in an attempt to win her back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s someone I wanted to share it with who might not be watching today,\u201d he told NRK, unprompted.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix months ago I met the love of my life \u2013 the most beautiful and kindest person in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree months ago I made my biggest mistake and cheated on her. I told her about it a week ago. It\u2019s been the worst week of my life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a gold medal in my life, and there are probably many who look at me with different eyes, but I only have eyes for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t quite know what I want to achieve by saying it here now, but sport has taken second place in recent days. I wish I could share it with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laegreid then told Norwegian outlet VG that he was not ready to \u201cgive up\u201d on his relationship following his infidelity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that committing social suicide might show how much I love her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m taking the consequences for what I\u2019ve done. I regret it with all my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laegreid came third behind compatriot Johan-Olav Botn and Eric Perrot of France to claim the bronze.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old Botn pointed to the sky as he crossed the line in memory of teammate Sivert Guttorm Bakken, who was found dead by Botn in his hotel room on a training camp shortly before Christmas.<\/p>\n
Botn had led the overall World Cup standings before the Christmas break but missed the next races on the circuit to attend Bakken\u2019s funeral, while illness has prevented him from reaching his early-season form since then.<\/p>\n
But he was back at his imperious best in Antholz-Anterselva on Tuesday, shooting all 20 targets without a miss, and stormed through the final lap before dedicating the win to his friend and teammate.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cAt the last shooting, my thoughts and feelings went toward my good friend Sivert Bakken who tragically died this Christmas. It was quite an emotional last loop for me. I felt like I was racing with him. I hope he was watching and hope he was proud of what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norway\u2019s Sturla Holm Laegreid, the 28-year-old World Cup winner and known as one of the best biathletes in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,898,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-292228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}