ANTERSELVA, ITALY, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Lisa Vittozzi gave Italian fans their golden moment in the women's 10km pursuit race at the Milano Cortina Games on Sunday, keeping her cool to shoot clean and finally deliver an Olympic gold medal in the sport in the country's biathlon heartland.
Fans began entering the arena before eight o'clock in the morning and though the temperatures were below freezing all day, they roared Vittozzi on to victory and through the medal ceremony in the afternoon, and they kept cheering as she went through her media duties an hour after the race.
"I did a perfect race, and I'm really proud of me and how I managed all the pressure, even if today I was pretty calm and just focused on myself and in my skills, and I did it, so it's a day that I will never forget," Vittozzi told reporters as the fans continued to chant her name.
Going up against Maren Kirkeeide at the last shoot, Vittozzi showed that she had ice in her veins as the Norwegian missed twice while she hit all her targets, skiing away to victory on the last lap, but she originally thought that Kirkeeide had only missed once.
"I only saw that I shot clean and all the fans were cheering for me. I was smiling after the shooting, and I heard that she missed one, but I didn't know that she missed two, so that was even better when I realised that I was first - it was really, really emotional," Vittozzi said.
Kirkeeide battled back to take silver ahead of Finland's Suvi Minkkinen, and after struggling over the last year Vittozzi bested them both, rediscovering her best form at just the right time to write her name in the history books.
"I never stopped believing in me and yeah, all the difficult times, it was worth it," she said.
"I'm really proud of myself that I never gave up, and even if this summer was really tough one. I knew that I have the chance to become Olympic champion."
(Reporting by Philip O'ConnorEditing by Christian Radnedge)
