Herrmann becomes biathlon pursuit world champion

The 30-year-old former cross country skier produced a near faultless shooting display to open up a lead on her rivals and claim the first major trophy of her career. Norway's Tiril Eckhoff came home 31.4 seconds later to take second and Germany's Laura Dahlmeier completed the podium while Slovakia's Anastasiya Kuzmina, who was crowned world champion in the sprint, finished sixth.

"I am a little bit tired from the race but it was so fantastic," said Herrmann. "I tried to focus on shooting and it was good that I had zero mistakes in the prone shooting because that has been the main problem at the last competition.

"It was a little bit windy at the zeroing, so I hoped for good conditions and in the third shooting, I had a couple of mistakes, so it was lucky that I had a little gap."