February 06, 2012 (Oslo, NOR) – Germany’s Andrea Henkel won her first race of the season on Sunday taking the women’s 12.5km mass start event with a solid 26-second advantage over Darya Domracheva of Belarus in second and Slovenia’s Teja Gregorin who finished third.

The women’s overall series leader, Magdalena Neuner (GER), was a late scratch from the field leaving the door open for her teammate Henkel. The race stayed tightly bunched for the majority of the first half of the competition. After the first standing stage Henkel took the lead and then as she shot clean in the final round of shooting she was able to solo in for the win.

The lone North American racing on Sunday was Canada’s Zina Kocher who finished in 29th position, 5 minutes down on the winner.

Henkel was pleased to be on the top step of the podium. “It is nice to win any time,” Henkel told biathlonworld.com. “It’s good to be back on top and it would be nice to be on the podium more often.”

Full results HERE.