January 22, 2017 (Antholz, ITA) – The USA’s Lowell Bailey was as high as second but finished 16th following two misses in each of his standing stages as Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Boe shot clean to claim his first win of the season at Antholz after coming back from illness.
France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet was second with one penalty at 3.7 seconds back while Russia’s Anton Shipulin took third, also with one penalty at 21.7 seconds behind Boe.Canada’s Scott Gow racing in his first Mass Start competition in sunny Antholz finished 30th as he suffered four missed targets at the final competition at round six of the BMW IBU World Cup.
Bailey sat in fourth place at 4.3 seconds back after a clean opening prone and followed that up with another clean prone stage to move into second place, less than a second behind leader Dmytro Pidruchnyi of Ukraine. His two standing misses pushed him back to 16th at the finish at 1:33.4 off the winning time. Boe admitted this victory meant a lot to him, “It means a lot, it’s been a long time since my last win. When you are not in your best shape and you don’t have the results that you want, it’s not easy to think positively. But I have maintained my aggression and my ambition to win.”Results here.