January 22, 2012 (Antholz, ITA) – It was a challenging yet satisfying day for Belarus biathlete, Darya Domracheva, who used her superior skiing and fine shooting late in the race to overtake the leaders and blast through to take the win in the women’s Mass Start race in Antholz, Italy. In second was Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia with Germany’s Magdalena Neuner completing the podium in third.

Conditions were near perfect as the sky was bright blue and the snow was fast with very little wind to interfere with shooting.  However, race winner Domracheva struggled in the shooting range the first round by missing two targets that set her back to 26th position at 50 seconds behind the leaders.

As Neuner and Kuzmina established themselves as the main contenders the Belarus did not give up as she skied and shot herself back into contention. At the final standing session it was Neuner who cracked first missing two shots while Kuzmina suffered one miss. Domracheva arrived soon after and shot clean to take over the lead and skied to victory.

The lone North American in today’s race was USA’s Susan Dunklee shot well in her first prone session and then missed two targets. She recovered well with clean shooting in the first standing round but faltered with three misses on her final time at the range finishing in 27th position.

Domracheva knew her competitors had missed some targets but… “It was just a fight between me and my targets, nobody more,” she said at the post-race press conference.  “I had a very good feeling today. I think Antholz is a very good place for me.”

Full results HERE.