December 18, 2004 – Canada’s Robin Clegg powered his way into the top-30 in the men’s 12.5- kilometre pursuit, finishing 27th in Östersund, Sweden on Friday.

With gusting winds playing havoc on the shooting range, Clegg calmly focused his energy towards perfecting his aim, shooting 18 of 20 targets to cross the finish line two minutes 57.4 seconds off the leader.

“I knew it was all going to happen at the shooting range,” said Clegg, who has been struggling to break into the top of the field this season. “I didn’t push myself very hard physically so I would be better prepared to shoot. It was a difficult day because of the wind gusts and I knew a lot of people were going to make quite a few shooting errors.”

The 27-year-old Ottawa native, whose best finish on the World Cup circuit last season was 18th, is looking to secure top-20 results during the second half of this pre-Olympic season.

“When you start in the back, you don’t have as much pressure on you. I didn’t get stressed out or nervous and everything I did seemed to go my way,” said the 2002 Olympian.

Egil Gjelland of Norway was first to cross the finish line on Friday with a time of 34:00:2, and one shooting error. Russia’s Sergei Rozhkov, who finished just 18.8 seconds off the pace, claimed second spot with two shooting errors, while Raphael Poiree of France locked up third 37.3 seconds behind Gjelland, with three shooting errors.

The Canadian Biathlon Team will head home December 20th for the holiday break before returning to World Cup action in the new year.