updated 9:53 a.m. ET Feb. 26, 2006

SAN SICARIO, Italy - One by one, the German favorites fizzled on the windy course. The Russians took advantage and nearly swept the medals at the 15k individual biathlon.

Svetlana Ishmouratova capitalized on missed shots by the bigger names Monday, winning in a time of 49 minutes, 24.1 seconds, and her Russian teammate Olga Pyleva was second. Their partner on the bronze medal-winning relay team in Salt Lake City, Albina Akhatova, was in line for the bronze until Martina Glagow of Germany bumped her to fourth.

“I consider myself very lucky today,” Ishmouratova said.

For, it was Glagow’s teammates whom everyone expected to dominate from the start and German Andrea Henkel looked like she was going to defend the gold medal she won in 2002 until she missed two targets on her final shoot and settled for fifth place on the slow, unpredictable San Sicario course.

“I’m very disappointed,” Henkel said. “I don’t know why I missed two shots in the last shooting. It wasn’t the wind that affected me. It was my head that wasn’t working. This is an Olympic race and you can’t make such mistakes.”

Norway’s Liv Grete Poiree, another medal hopeful, was leading the race and also on pace for a clean shoot until she made three mistakes on her final stop at the shooting range.

“I’m angry, I’m sorry, I’ll keep trying,” she said.

Germany’s top two competitors, World Cup leader Kati Wilhelm and Uschi Disl, both lost focus on one of their shoots, missing three times each — and five times overall. Disl was a disappointing 13th and Wilhelm an even more shocking 17th.

For Wilhelm, it wasn’t the wind gusts that cost her a medal but a moment of forgetfulness.

“I altered the sights for the second shooting because of the wind and forgot to change them again before the third shooting,” Wilhelm said after all three of her misses went left.

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Glagow said she didn’t feel as though she had saved the day for the Germans, who remain among the favorites in the remaining races, providing they can settle their nerves.

“I feel we are a very strong team and we have a very good spirit,” Glagow said. “It’s good to win a medal. We have eight more races (including four men’s). And it’s OK. It’s OK.”

Poland’s Krystyna Palka posted the first perfect Olympic shoot in the women’s individual race and took sixth. Americans Rachel Steer, Tracy Barnes, Sarah Konrad and Lanny Barnes were 42nd, 58th, 63rd and 65th, respectively, in the field of 82.

Tracy Barnes missed just one of her 20 shots, resulting in a one-minute penalty, but she had trouble navigating around the course that was slowed by warm, clear day that began to bake the snow by race’s end.

Slide show   Pictures of the Day Check out Sunday's best Olympic images.

The Americans were hoping for a top-20 finish from Steer but they’re not expecting any miracles in Italy.

The men, however, have big things in mind after Jay Hakkinen’s 10th-place finish in the 20km race, the best showing ever by the United States in Europe’s most popular winter sport.

“I can shoot fast and now I’m skiing with the top guys,” said Hakkinen, whose best race, the 10km sprint, is Tuesday. “And if I can go out tied with anyone, I should be able to out-ski them. And our skis are amazing right now. It can happen.”

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