January 20, 2018 (Antholz, Italy) – Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Boe shot clean and delivered a perfect race in the men’s 12.5km Pursuit in a wire-to-wire win. Boe was just over a minute ahead of Martin Fourcade (Fra) in second with one penalty while Anton Shipulin of Russia claimed third also with one penalty at 1:18.4 behind.

The USA’s Tim Burke finished 21st with one penalty matched by teammate Lowell Bailey who was 35th on the day.  Leif Nordgren placed 44th after starting in 48th after suffering three penalties in standing. No Canadians competed.

“I could not have done much better today. It is not often you get a perfect race, but today was one of them…It was very nice to feel the energy from the people,” said Boe in a biathlonworld.com interview. “Before the race, I was only thinking about getting 10-of-10 in prone. I was not thinking about the race so much because I thought it would be tight with Martin. But after he missed on the first prone, I was in my own lane, by myself and that made the race easier.”

“Shooting was decent today, but I didn’t feel any better on the skis, unfortunately,” said Bailey. “For now, I’ll take a rest day and get back to it on Monday with the preparation for the Olympics. I trust my training was good this season. Now, it’s just a matter of doing some quality training sessions over the next two weeks and focusing on the Olympics.

Earlier in the day Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier, win the women’s 10km pursuit in 29:45 with one penalty as Italy’s Dorothea Wierer crossed the line in second at 17.3 seconds behind, with two penalties. Third place went to Darya Domracheva of Belarus, also with two penalties at 20.2 seconds behind Dahlmeier.

The USA’s Clare Egan suffered three penalties to finish 37th, her best pursuit finish of the season, while teammate Emily Dreissigacker missed four targets to finish 56th at her first-career world cup pursuit.