PREVIEW-Olympics-Biathlon-Bjorndalen looms large again

MELBOURNE Feb 2 (Reuters) - As it did four years ago, Norwegian Ole Einar Bjorndalen's shadow will loom large over the biathlon at the Vancouver Olympic Games.

Bjorndalen entered the 2006 Turin Olympics having won all four golds at Salt Lake City in 2002.

By the end of the Turin Games, which were blighted by bizarre events that followed high-profile doping raids on the Austrian team's accommodation, he had lost all four, instead finishing with two silvers and a bronze.

Those results, however, may have been a temporary aberration. Bjorndalen has won six individual gold medals at the three world championships since 2006, was twice overall World Cup champion and is again prominent on this season's World Cup circuit.

The 36-year-old and his compatriot Emil Hegle Svendsen have won seven of the eight World Cup races they have entered, and they skipped the last event in Italy to fine-tune their preparations ahead of the competition at Whistler Olympic Park.

Germany's Michael Greis, who upstaged Bjorndalen in Turin by claiming three golds, has struggled to rediscover that form this season and the 33-year-old soldier is down the standings in all disciplines.

France's pursuit champion Vincent Defrasne has also struggled, though he has predicted that the course in Whistler may not be a factor, something that may play into his hands.

Bjorndalen wins most of his races courtesy of a relentless pace in an effort to negate any shooting penalties he accrues, though he was out-skied by Defrasne in Turin.

"I think no big gaps will be made in the skiing parts," Defrasne said in a Reuters interview last October. "You will have 10 or so skiers in roughly the same time. What will make the difference will be the shooting."

Tim Burke, hoping to become the first U.S. biathlete to win a medal at the Winter Games, Russia's Evgeny Ustyugov and Austrian duo Simon Eder and Christoph Sumann have also positioned themselves well for medals in Whistler.

Overall World Cup leader Simon Fourcade of France is also in contention, though he has finished on the podium just once in World Cup races this season and leads the standings through a consistent series of top-10 placings.

CONSISTENT JONSSON

The women's competition may be more open with World Cup leader Helena Jonsson of Sweden hoping to capitalise on a remarkable run of consistency in the first half of the season.

Jonsson, last season's overall World Cup winner, who also won the world pursuit title in Pyeongchang last year, has won four races and finished second three times to establish a 71-point lead over German trio Andrea Henkel, Simone Hauswald and Kati Wilhelm.

Of more concern, however, for the 25-year-old Jonsson is the German lurking in sixth place -- Magdalena Neuner -- the overall World Cup winner in 2008.

Neuner, who had an early-season back injury, won two of the three races and finish second in the third in Italy, though several of the main contenders skipped the final World Cup meeting ahead of the Games.

The German customs officer, who has a website about her passion for knitting, should be part of a strong German relay team who will undoubtedly be targeting Russia as the biggest challenge for the gold.

Norway, with Bjorndalen and Svendsen, will be tough to beat in the men's relay, though Russia and Austria are also contenders.

Austria's team hit the headlines in Turin when their biathlon and cross-country skiers were subjected to late-night doping tests after police and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) raided their accommodation after a banned Austrian coach put in an appearance at their Games headquarters.

Coach Walter Mayer, banned since the 2002 Games over another doping affair, fled across the border into Austria, crashing his car into a roadblock before briefly being admitted to a psychiatric asylum. None of the athletes tested positive.

(Editing by Clare Fallon; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)