December 17, 2016 (Nove Mesto, CZE) – American Susan Dunklee continued her world class performances with a personal-best 4th in the women’s pursuit at the BMW IBU World Cup 3 in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic on Saturday. France’s Anais Chevalier took the win for her first-ever World Cup victory with one missed target.

Italy’s Dorothea Wierer had a season best in second place, with two penalties, 9.5 seconds back. Sprint winner Tatiana Akimova of Russia finished third, with one penalty, 19.4 seconds back.

Canada’s Julia Ransom matched a career-best World Cup pursuit result in 19th. The 23-year-old from Kelowna, B.C. shot clean until her fourth and final stop on the range where she missed one.

Dunklee started third off the line in the women’s race, five seconds behind Friday’s sprint winner Akimova and less than a second back of Chevalier. In the first prone shooting stage Dunklee was the only one to go clean, giving her the lead and a 15-second advantage over Wierer who also went clean.

“I wanted to catch a ride on the first loop,” Dunklee said of her race strategy. “I now trust my range work to put me where I want to be. Mostly I was just focusing on skiing in control as the race is long and leading early doesn’t necessarily mean much.”

After a miss in her second prone stage, Dunklee dropped back to fourth place, 14 seconds out of first. Another miss on her last target in the first standing stage knocked her down to fifth, but she reclaimed fourth with a clean final standing. That put her five seconds behind Akimova leaving the range, but she couldn’t close the gap in the final stretch.

“Everyone was struggling a lot today with the icy surface,” Dunklee added. “It is impossible in places to get any purchase on the snow.” Dunklee, who had the fastest total range time in the field, crossed the line 8.6 seconds after Akimova.

Canadian Rosanna Crawford moved up five spots to finish 32nd with two misses on the range while American Joanne Reid hit 18 of 20 targets to finish 54th.

Full results here.