February 06, 2015 (Nova Mesto, CZE) – Team USA scored a stellar seventh place finish using 13 spare rounds in the Mixed Relay at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto with 32,000 screaming biathlon fans on hand as Norway took the win using six spares.

The home team Czech Republic was only 4.1 seconds back in second with five spare rounds as third place went to the Ukraine at 1:21.3 back, with one penalty and seven spares. Biathlon Canada’s Audrey Vaillancourt, Rosanna Crawford, Nathan Smith and Brendan Green ended up 14th with two penalties and 13 spare rounds at 5:12 behind.

Susan Dunklee started things off for the U.S. as the temperatures dropped and the wind died down. After using two spares in prone, Dunklee found herself in 17th place, 28.6 seconds back of the leader. She used two more spares in standing but had the team up to 10th place as she exited the range 40.7 seconds down.

Dunklee put on a strong last lap to bring the U.S. up to fourth place as she exchanged with Hannah Dreissigacker, now just 33 seconds out from the lead. “I didn’t shoot as well as I am capable of tonight, but I felt great about my skiing and I had a lot of fun chasing people down during my last lap,” said Dunklee.

Dreissigacker used three spares to slip to seventh in the prone stage, and two more spares in standing dropped the American squad down to 10th. Leif Nordgren went to work and cleaned in prone to bring the U.S. up to sixth, moving into a strong 4th by using just one spare in standing as he tagged Sean Doherty for the final 7.5km leg at 1:36.

Doherty used one spare in prone and two in standing to slip to fifth place as he sprinted for the finish on the final lap. He was passed by France’s Martin Fourcade on the last lap and then was narrowly nipped at the line by 0.2 seconds by Germany’s Benedikt Doll.

“Under the lights racing in front of 30,000-plus spectators, there is nothing quite like it,” Dunklee added. “Our team came within .2 seconds of being in the flower ceremony tonight and I think we will be in the fight again at World Championships. Everyone had a great leg — Hannah skied with Darya (Domracheva) and Marie Dorin (Habert), some of the top ladies in the field, Leif move us up several places and young Sean performed beautifully in the anchor position with the likes of Martin Fourcade and Jakob Fak breathing down his neck.”

Inaugural Single Mixed Relay

Earlier in the day, Russia’s Yana Romanova and Alexey Volkov shot clean to win the inaugural single mixed relay in 35:43.5. Second place went to Norway at 21.5 seconds back also shooting clean as did the Ukraine third at 24.6 seconds back.

The U.S. team of Annelies Cook and Tim Burke shot clean as well to place 9th at 2:23.8 behind the Russians while Canada’s Megan Heinicke and Scott Gow did not start.

The single mixed relay format has the female team member starting. After shooting both prone and standing she tags off to her male teammate who also shoots both prone and standing before tagging off to the same female. Each competitor on the team completes four bouts of shooting and the associated ski loops, with the female covering 6km and the male 7.5km.

“Today was definitely a fun race,” said Burke. “It was great to try something different with the sprint relay after competing in the same formats for many years. I was pleased with the result today. It’s always good to be in the top 10. Sprinting and then shooting makes for an interesting combination, which definitely makes the shooting quite tough. The conditions were also quite challenging here today with heavy wind gusts. I expect to see more of the same this weekend, so today’s race was good practice.”

Mixed Relay results here.
Single Mixed Relay results here.

With files from US Biathlon