February 11, 2012 (Kontiolahti, FIN) – Magdalena Neuner (GER) continued her impressive 2011-12 season by grabbing her eighth win of the World Cup season in the women’s 7.5km sprint by a 12-second margin over Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen while Darya Domracheva of Belarus finished in third. Both Neuner and Mäkäräinen had one penalty while Domracheva suffered two misses.

Canada’s Zina Kocher had a superb day with her best result of the season finishing 12th with two misses. The women’s field had to deal with cold temperatures and wind today just like the men – near -15.8 Celsius – and Kocher told SkiTrax how she deals with the cold.

“I went shopping the other day and picked up a Craft windproof top, Craft balaclava, thicker craft socks and hot packs (which I put in the top of my boots!). So I wore all of those things, plus I put physio tape on my nose and cheeks, to help against frostbite. I stayed nice and toasty,” said Kocher.

The wind wasn’t much of a concern for the Canadian Olympian as she’s been working on her shooting all week. “I’ve been focusing on a few technical aspects in shooting, with Richard, and my goal today was focused on perfecting these technical aspects. I’ve been struggling with shooting in the Sprint competition this year, and today I left with a higher level of confidence.”

Kocher added that she feels she’s on the verge of a breakthrough result as she “…was a hair away from having a top-8 result today as my last shot in standing went halfway up and fell back down to black… a very close split!”

The USA’s Sara Studebaker is also on a roll earning her top finish of the season with clean shooting to place 15th place. She was part of yesterday’s Mixed Relay where Team USA finished a historic 6th. Fellow American Annelies Cook and Susan Dunklee finishing in 39th and 65th respectively.

This round of the World Cup in Finland finishes up on Sunday with the men & women’s Pursuit races.

Full results HERE.