February 4, 2011 (Nove Mesto, Czech Republic) – The second to last day of the Youth/Junior World Biathlon Championships had Youth Men racing a 3 x 7.5Km relay. The Candian team of Stuart Harden, Christian Gow, and Macx Davies captured the top North American result of the day, placing 7th. This strong result comes on the heels of a career-best individual result of 18th in the 12.5Km individual for Harden on February 2nd. The American team of Casey Smith, Sean Doherty, and Samuel Dougherty were 12th.

“My legs didn’t feel great on the skis, but being the last race of World Championships the whole team pushed as hard as we could for our respective legs,” said Harden. “Unfortunately we didn’t perform as well as we had liked on the range and that showed in the result. We had good hopes for a better result, but Christian and I will be youths at next years championships and are looking forward to the relay as another great chance for a Canadian medal.”

Russians Alexandr Loginov, Alexander Chernyshov and Maxim Tsvetkov took the win ahead of Italians Benjamin Plaickner, Thierry Chenal, and Maikol Demetz and Austrians Alexander Jakob, Thomas Haumer, and Fabian Hoerl. No teams shot clean.

The IBU Youth/Junior World Biathlon Championships kicked off on January 27th in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, and wrap up on February 5th. On the final day of racing, Canadian Juniors Scott Gow (brother of youth racer Christian Gow), Vincent Blais, Aaron Neumann, and David Gregoire will team up to take on the Junior Men’s 4×7.5Km relay, while American Juniors Eathan Dreissigacher, Raileigh Goessling, Benjamin Greenwald, and Raymond Wonders will represent the USA in the same event.

Full results HERE.