It was a first-ever podium place for Romania at the European Championships with Piscoran winning in blustery and difficult conditions.

The strong winds made it incredibly difficult on the shooting range, with the Romanian winning despite five missed shots throughout the course.

Austria's Christina Rieder proved most accurate with the gun as she missed just three targets across the 15km.

The Austrian was 11.7 seconds ahead of Piscoran coming out of the final range but the Romanian's incredible speed saw her fly past as she finished 20.6 seconds clear in a time of 51min 15.7sec.

Russia's Ekaterina Yurlova, another quick skier, lost valuable seconds due to seven missed targets and, despite a brilliant last loop, skied home 27 seconds behind Rieder in third.

Luminita Piscoran secured Romania's first ever medal at the IBU Open European Championships with her victory in Estonia today ©IBU



"I'm really glad about this victory and I'm planning to do more if it is possible, I trained hard for that," said Piscoran following her win.

"[I] Hope to be better in Kontiolahti [in Finland] for the World Championships [March 3 to 15].

"I did my best on the tracks, I had one trainer on the lap and every time he told me how to go faster."

The men's 20km race saw a comfortable win for Russia's Sochi 2014 relay gold medallist Alexey Volkov.

The Russian showed near perfection on the range to miss just two targets in the final loop en route to victory in 53:23.2, more than a minute clear of Ukrainian Sergey Semenov.

Semenov missed on four occasions to record 54:28.8, just shy of 26 seconds ahead of Bulgaria's Vladimir Iliev in third.

Action is due to continue in Estonia tomorrow with the junior men's 10km sprint and junior women's 7.5km sprint.

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