Story byFrance's Eric Perrot celebrates winning the men's 12.5 km biathlon pursuit competition of the IBU Biathlon World Cup in Hochfilzen. Georg Hochmuth/APA/dpaDPASat, December 13, 2025 at 2:55 PM UTC·2 min readEric Perrot of France shot clean to claim victory in a biathlon World Cup pursuit race on Saturday as he turned the table on Italian rival Tommaso Giacomel. Giacomel had pipped Perrot for first place in Friday's sprint and the two were neck-to-neck in the pursuit until Giacomel misfired in the third shooting and had to ski a penalty lap. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPerrot never looked back and also hit all five targets in the final shooting portion to claim a fourth career victory, 14.5 seconds ahead of Giacomel. Norwegian World Cup leader Johan-Olav Botn was third with one missed target."We had a really high-level fight," Perrot said."I knew that on every shooting I had to clean because I know Tommy is really fast on the shooting range also on the tracks. It was a real fight with myself to try to take all the targets.