January 20, 2017 (Antholz, Italy) – Team USA’s Lowell Bailey led the charge in 10th with one missed target in the men’s individual 20km in sunny Antholz while Canada’s Scott Gow nailed a career-best 17th also with one penalty.

It was Russian Anton Shipulin’s day taking his first-ever 20km win and his first World Cup individual race victory of the season in 50:38.1 with one missed target. Martin Fourcade (Fra), settled for second suffering two penalties while Sergey Semenov (Ukr) earned the bronze after a fateful miss in his final standing.

“The conditions were great here today; sunny skies, cold and fast snow, and little wind,” said Bailey. “This is a brutal 20-kilometer, with each four kilometer loop starting with nearly one kilometer of climb out of the stadium. I tried to maintain a good pace but with the intention to stay consistent in my splits throughout the race. Towards the end, I wasn’t quite able to stay on my same pace, but I fought to the line and stayed just ahead of Bene Doll.”

“The conditions were great here today; sunny skies, cold and fast snow, and little wind,” Bailey said. “This is a brutal 20-kilometer, with each four kilometer loop starting with nearly one kilometer of climb out of the stadium. I tried to maintain a good pace but with the intention to stay consistent in my splits throughout the race. Towards the end, I wasn’t quite able to stay on my same pace, but I fought to the line and stayed just ahead of Bene Doll.”

Bailey was also pleased with the entire team effort today.

American Leif Nordgren turned in one of the best performances of his career with a 29th-place finish, missing two targets to finish four minutes back.

“I started the race pretty conservatively,” said Nordgren. “The altitude combined with the length of the race made for a pretty tough day and I didn’t want to start off too strong. Missing two shots today was one too many to have a really good result, but I’m happy with 29th.”

The USA’s Paul Schommer had a remarkable performance at his first career World Cup with three clean stages hitting 18 of 20 targets for 33rd. Tim Burke finished 34th with four penalties, Sean Doherty was 36th with three penalties, Canada’s Brendan Green and Christian Gow finished tied in 75th – Green missed six shots, while Gow had four misses.

Full results here.