Jakov Fak

Jakov Fak
Personal information
Full name	Jakov Fak
Born	(1987-08-01) 1 August 1987 Rijeka, SFR Yugoslavia
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Professional information
Club	SD Pokljuka
World Cup
Seasons	2006–
Wins	2
Additional podiums	3
Total podiums	5
Medal record Men's biathlon Competitor for  Slovenia World Championships Gold 2012 Ruhpolding 20 km individual Silver 2012 Ruhpolding Mixed relay Bronze 2013 Nové Město Sprint Competitor for  Croatia Olympic Games Bronze 2010 Vancouver 10 km sprint World Championships Bronze 2009 Pyeongchang 20 km individual
Updated on 6 March 2012.

Fak in 2010, Slovenian mixed team.

Fak in a race Podium (2010).

Jakov Fak (born 1 August 1987 in Rijeka, Croatia) is a biathlete from Croatia, who competes for Slovenia. As a member of the Croatian biathlon team, Fak won a bronze medal at the World Championships in 2009 and another bronze at the 2010 Winter Olympics. In 2010, Fak announced he would move to the Slovenian biathlon team and has represented Slovenia since the beginning of the 2010/2011 season. At the 2012 World Championships, Fak won a gold medal at 20 km event and a silver medal at the mixed relay, together with Andreja Mali, Teja Gregorin and Klemen Bauer.

Career

Fak began to compete in biathlon in 2001 under the trainer Robert Petrović. His first international biathlon tournament was the Junior World Championships in Ridnaun in 2002 where his best result was 64th place in the Sprint event. Fak improved his performance in 2008, eventually finishing in the top 10 at that year's Junior World Championships.

Since 2006, Fak has participated in the Biathlon World Cup. In his first race in the World Cup in Hochfilzen Fak finished 107th. For a long time his best performance was 47th place which he reached in an Individual race in 2007 in Pokljuka. In 2007 he participated in his first Biathlon World Championships, finishing 78th in the Sprint race and 93rd in the Individual.

The big breakthrough in Fak's career came in the 2008/09 season. In the opening race of the season Fak came in 47th but in the Individual he earned his first World cup points with a 38th position finish. In the third stage of the World cup in Hochfilzen Fak achieved a 16th place finish.

2009 Biathlon World Championships

Despite several respectable performances in the World Cup, Fak's performance at the Biathlon World Championships 2009 came as a huge surprise. In the opening sprint race Fak improved his career best performance by two more places by finishing 14th. He couldn't improve on that performance in the pursuit falling back to 25th place. The big surprise came in the 20 kilometres individual race where Fak won the bronze medal. A perfect score in the final range would have brought Fak a gold medal, however after one miss Fak had to battle very hard for at least some medal and in the end beat Simon Fourcade by less than a second to win the bronze. Thus Jakov Fak won Croatia their first-ever World Championship medal in biathlon.

2010 Winter Olympics

Jakov Fak was the flag-bearer for Croatia at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

After his success in the World Championships, the expectations were high, but Fak's World Cup race performances in the 2009–10 season were substandard.^[1] He managed to win his first points in the World Cup only on 23 January 2010, with a 24th place in Antholz,^[2] and was by that time largely forgotten by the public.^[1] At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Fak once again created a sensation by winning the bronze medal in the 10 km sprint.^[3]

Switch of Citizenship

In July 2010 it was announced in the Slovenian Press that Fak would represent Slovenia in international competition.^[4] On 19 November the switch to the Slovenian Biatlethe team was officially announced and Fak received his Slovenian passport on 24 November, enabling him to compete for Slovenia.^[5]

Career threatening injury

At the world cup races in the US in 2011 which were held in freezing temperatures Jakov Fak suffered 3rd degree frostbite to his trigger finger.^[6] It was feared his finger may have to be amputated which would certainly have ended his career as a biathlete. Jakov and his coaches decided to pull out of the Biathlon World Championships 2011 in Russia to focus on recovering from his injury and saving his finger.

2012 Biathlon World Championships

After missing the 2011 World Championship due to the injury, Fak entered the 2012 World Championship as a member of Slovenian team. He won two medals, a silver in the mixed relay (together with Andreja Mali, Teja Gregorin and Klemen Bauer). Although Slovenia crossed the finish line as first, 8.2 seconds in front of Norway, the jury awarded bonus seconds for the Scandinavians because one target did not go down despite their last runner Ole Einar Bjørndalen hit it and therefore had to take an additional penalty loop, which put them ahead of Slovenia into the first place.^[7] A couple of days later, Fak won the gold medal at the 20 km individual, thus winning the first gold medal for Slovenia at World Championships.^[8]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jakov Fak.

• Profile at International Biathlon Union
• Croatian Biathlon Association (Croatian)
• Fak: Moj životni san se ispunio već ove godine (Croatian)

Olympic Games
Preceded by Janica Kostelić	Flagbearer for  Croatia Vancouver 2010	Succeeded by Ivica Kostelić