Pyeongchang, South Korea  - Ole Einar Bjoerndalen on Sunday made history as he won the men's pursuit at the biathlon world championship in Pyeongchang - equalling the world record of 86 World Cup wins in the process.

There was, however, some doubt whether the results would stand as the race directors launched an investigation after Bjoerndalen and several others left the track for a while at the beginning of the race.

In the women's pursuit race, Sweden's Helena Jonsson stunned the favoured Germans taking the gold from Kati Wilhelm after a brilliant shooting display.

Bjoerndalen, who on Saturday won his fourth sprint title and went into the race as the favourite, was seldom under pressure as he struck all five targets at the first shooting and then made just four mistakes in the following three shootings.

He won in a time of 31 minutes 46.7 seconds.

Russian Maxim Tchoudov, however, spoiled the Norwegian party by taking silver with three mistakes in the shooting range and 41.7 seconds behind Bjoerndalen.

Norway, who on Saturday took the first four places in the sprint, won the bronze through Alexander Os, who was 52.8 seconds behind Bjoerndalen.

Bjoerndalen, whose 86 World Cup wins equalized Ingemar Stenmark's total, won 85 in biathlon and one in cross-country. His silverware also includes 12 world titles
(including four in the sprint 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009) and five Olympic gold medals.

Earlier Jonsson claimed the gold in the women's pursuit after a near-flawless display in the shooting range.

The Swede stunned the favoured Germans in windy conditions missing just twice on the first shooting, but then hitting all the remaining targets, to move past Germany's Kati Wilhelm and win in a time of 34 minutes 12.3 seconds.

Wilhelm was 18.3 seconds behind.

The 2007 world champion Magdalena Neuner from Germany, who was lying first going into the final shooting section, crashed out of contention with four misses out of five and then took a tumble on the final lap to finish down into 11th place.

The bronze medal went to Russian Olga Zaitseva, who like Wilhelm, had six misses in the shooting range.

The best performance belonged to France's Marie Laure Brunet, who managed to hit each of her 20 targets and moved from 52nd at the start to seventh position.

Defending champion Andrea Hinkel was disqualified before the start of the race after inadvertidly loading a live bullet into her gun during a training session and then shooting a hole through a wall.

"Something like that has never happened to me. That is really irritating because I had an excellent starting position," she said. dpa