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WHISTLER (AFP) -- Björn Ferry is a real hot shot with the biathlon rifle, as well a mean skier -- two reasons why he won the pursuit title on Tuesday at Whistler.
Any apologists for dopers hopefully gave the event a wide berth.
NBC's Al Trautwig & Chad Salmela discuss the men's 12.5km and women's 10km pursuit races from Day 5.
First-time Olympian Magdalena Neuner shows off her new hardware in the form of a women's pursuit gold medal.
Had they or any 'pharma-athletes' shown their faces they would have risked seeing the outspoken Swede turn his sights on them.
Before his race, Ferry underlined his contempt for anyone taking a soft line on drug cheats and said dopers deserved the stiffest punishment.
And not just the usual slap on the wrist of a ban.
"If it were up to me I would dish out the death penalty in doping cases," he said.
"Or at least lots of kicks in the balls."
Not for Ferry the usual response of sport's highest echelons handing out an often backdated ban which allows a doper to return post-haste to their chosen sport, a softly-softly approach he says fails athletes who stay clean.
"Until we impose harsher penalties we will not be able to rid ourselves of people with low moral standards," said the man who garnered his first Olympic medal in seeing off Austria's Christoph Sumann and Frenchman Vincent Jay.
Injury problems in the autumn hampered Ferry's Games preparations, he revealed.
"I lost five to six weeks of training in mid-September and October, but I felt I was in great shape for the Olympic Games," said Ferry, handing his German coach coach Wolfgang Pichler much of the credit.
"He's been a big influence since Salt Lake City (in 2002). He's been my coach my entire career. He's the engine of the Swedish team," said the 31-year-old.
Rather than contemplate a dishonest, drug-fueled route to success, Ferry echoed German champion Magdalena Neuner in saying that the only foundation for success is years of hard graft and dedication from an early age.
"I've trained every day since I was six years old and now I'm 31," he said.
"Today is my day. On the second lap I realized I was skiing really well and I started to believe I could stay with the leaders.
"In the fourth lap I came out leading with Jay and I saw he was tiring -- so I told myself I could win and I attacked," added Ferry, who timed 33min 38.4sec for a margin of 16.5sec.
