February 18, 2009 (Pyeong Chang, Korea) – Haley Johnson (Lake Placid, NY) turned in an outstanding 23rd place today in the Women’s 15km Individual at the Biathlon World Championships. The 23rd place is a personal best for Johnson at the World Cup level and the best US women’s result at World Championships since Rachel Steer placed 17th in the Pursuit in 2005.

Johnson cleaned the first three stages, before missing on her 19th shot in the 20-shot competition. That was her only penalty of the night. Coach Per Nilsson commented after she cleaned her third stage, “Haley is really in the zone tonight.” She finished 3:24.6 behind Kati Wilhelm of Germany, who also had one penalty. The victory for Wilhelm was her first-ever in an Individual competition. Her time of 43:00.1 was 39.5 seconds ahead of Teja Gregorin of Slovenia and 58.6 seconds ahead of Tora Berger of Norway. The three medalists all had one penalty.

Johnson commented on her breakthrough after the competition. “I did a lot of things differently tonight from other competitions. I have been working very hard for this. In the last stage, I missed the fourth shot, but I knew I had one left and I hit it.”

Matching Johnson on the shooting range was Lanny Barnes (Durango, CO) who also had one penalty. Barnes’ penalty came in the first prone stage. She finished 42nd, 5:28.5 back; while her sister Tracy, with two penalties finished 59th, 7:10 back and Carolyn Treacy Bramante, (Duluth, MN) was 64th, 7:52 back.

Zina Kocher was the top finisher for Canada in 35th place, Megan Imrie 45th, Megan Tandy 53rd and Sandra Keith in 71st.

Complete results here