Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia  - Norway's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen secured the season's World Cup biathlon title with second place in the men's 10-kilometre sprint on Thursday.

It was a sixth overall World Cup win for the 35-year-old who equals the record of Magdalena Forsberg of Sweden.

Race winner in the Siberian venue of Khanty-Mansiysk was Germany's Arnd Peiffer who celebrated a first World Cup race victory.

With two races remaining, Bjoerndalen has an unassailable 978 points, with Tomasz Sikora of Poland on 854 and Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway on 758.

He also clinched the sprint title, finishing the 10 races on 372 points, ahead of Sikora (337) and Svendsen (318).

Bjoerndalen, who has a record 89 World Cup wins, said the success was unexpected after he had not been able to train well in autumn.

He was now looking forward to doing well at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

"It's always difficult to be in top form in the decisive two weeks but I will be trying next season," he said.

Peiffer made no mistakes on the shooting range on the way to his maiden win in 25 minutes 51.1 seconds, 23.1 seconds ahead of Bjoerndalen (one error) and 27.3 seconds up on Austrian Christoph Sumann (no errors). (dpa)