February 02, 2012 (Oslo, NOR) – American Lowell Bailey and Canada’s Brendan Green punched their way into the top ten claiming 8th and 9th place respectively as Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev landed the first win of his young career in the men’s 10km Sprint besting Arnd Peiffer of Germany by only seven tenths of a second.

Bailey suffered one penalty while Green (CAN) shot clean like the winner for a career-best result. Conditions remained near ideal and although the sunshine that graced the women’s race was gone, the men still had fast snow conditions and very little wind to affect shooting.

Garanichev, 23, shot clean as did Peiffer. Rounding out the podium in 3rd place, less than 12 seconds behind the winner was Norwegian star, Emil Hegle Svendsen, with two penalties.

Bailey was happy with his performance. “Finally we had a day where the ski tracks were firm and there was little wind on the range,” said Bailey in a team release. “I felt good skiing, and shooting came together well with one miss on the day.”

Green echoed Bailey’s thoughts on the day as the Canadians celebrated a historic day with all five athletes (men and women) qualifying for Saturday’s pursuit race after finishing the sprint in the top-30 for the first time in the history of the program.

“The racing went really today,” commented Green in a Biathlon Canada press release. “We had a perfect winter day in Oslo, and conditions stayed consistent throughout the race. It’s always a great feeling to shoot clean, and when it comes with a personal best result it makes it even better.

Other notable finishes saw the USA’s Tim Burke in 15th, Jean Philippe Le Guellec of Canada in 20th, Jay Hakkinen (USA) in 24th, and Canada’s Scott Perras in 27th place out of the 89 starters in the race.

This is the first season for Garanichev on the World Cup circuit. The win was within his grasp a few weeks ago in Antholz, Italy, and with a couple of weeks of hard training, Garanichev said he “…feel[s] very excited right now” scoring his first World Cup win.

Friday is a rest day as the racing resumes on Saturday with the men’s and women’s individual pursuit competitions.

Full results HERE.