December 12, 2015 (Hochfilzen, Austria) – The USA’s Lowell Bailey put in another good day at the office finishing 13th in the men’s 12.5km Pursuit with one penalty for his second top-20 finish in as many days. Canada’s Nathan Smith held his spot to finish 18th with four missed targets as Martin Fourcade (Fra) took the win suffering two penalties with a time of 31:19.9.

Bailey © Nordic Focus

Friday’s sprint winner, Simon Schempp (Ger), dropped one spot into the silver medal position at 8.9s behind Fourcade (0+0+1+0) while Russia’s Anton Shipulin skied to the bronze medal step of the podium (0+0+2+0) at 19.1s back.

Bailey was the 12th skier off the line, starting 40 seconds behind the leader Schempp of Germany and shot clean on the first two shooting stages to move up to eighth. A miss at the third shooting stage bumped him back to 12th but he rebounded with another clean round at the final shooting and exited the range in 10th. In the sprint to the finish, he was unable to hold off a few other competitors and crossed the line 13th.

Men's podium © Nordic Focus

“Today was a great indicator of how strong the current men’s World Cup field is,” said Bailey. “I feel really good about my race today, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to hold or improve my starting place. Some days the field is just that strong and you just have to live with the result. Still, I’m happy with another top-15 and excited for the relay tomorrow.”

Smith © Nordic Focus

Smith missed two shots in his first and last of four rounds of shooting on the slick course that saw many of the world’s best go down. “The snow conditions are firm but really icy on all downhill corners. It was difficult staying on my feet. In the pursuit it is especially important to be vigilant while skiing in close groups of skiers,” said Smith.

Tim Burke © Nordic Focus

Tim Burke (USA) finished 27th, moving up from 30th start with three penalties, Brendan Green (Can) finished 34th (2+0+2+0), Sean Doherty (USA) missed six targets but skied well to finish 35th, Christian Gow had a solid day of shooting to bolt 20 spots up to finish 39th, Scott Gow placed 45th (2+3+1+0) and Leif Nordgren moved up three places to finish 52nd with five penalties.

Women’s Pursuit

The lone U.S. competitor in the women’s 10km Pursuit was Susan Dunklee who started 53rd but turned in the 14th-fastest range time and 17th-quickest course time to move up to 31st at the finish with three penalties.

Dunklee © Nordic Focus

Rosanna Crawford climbed four spots to finish 35th. Crawford, 27, was perfect in her first round of prone shooting before missing one shot in final prone and two standing rounds of shots.

World Cup rookie Julia Ransom had a strong day climbing 11 spots in the standings to finish 43rd (1+1+1+0) while Megan Tandy rebounded after missing three shots in her opening prone to place 48th (3+1+0+1).

Women's podium © Nordic Focus

“My season has started disappointingly slowly and my big challenge has been to keep myself focused forward,” said Dunklee. “The pursuit race format is a great opportunity to practice that. On skis, I hunted down the people in front of me and in the range I tried to focus only on the things that matter, like building a stable position with my body and having a good follow through.  I’m happy to finally score a few World Cup points.”

Laura Dahlmeier of Germany won the women’s pursuit in 28:23.3 with one penalty. Her teammate, Maren Hammerschmidt, finished second with two penalties, 13.3 seconds back. Gabriela Soukalova of Czech Republic had one penalty to place third, 18.5 seconds behind Dahlmeier.

Men’s results here.
Women’s results here.