March 19, 2015 (Surnadal, Norway) – Canada’s Mark 

and Brittany Hudak each battled for bronze medal landing on the IPC World Cup biathlon podium on March 18 in Surnadal, Norway.

Arendz, of Hartsville, P.E.I., dropped out of podium contention after one miss in his last of two rounds of shooting. The 25 year old, two-time Paralympian, hammered the pace out of the range to climb back into the bronze-medal position of the podium with a time of 18:06.1 (0+1) in the 7.5-kilometre men’s standing race.

“It was a great skiing race for me. I was moving well throughout the race, but made a bit of work for myself with that miss on the range,” said Arendz. “I felt confident on the range, but a miss is costly. There was some really tight results in my field and I have to be pleased I skied somewhat back after that first miss is my second shooting.”

Russia’s Vladislav Lekimtcev shot clean to win the men’s standing gold with a time of 17:20.1 Norway’s Nils-Erik Ulset celebrated the silver medal with a time of 18:05.0 after a perfect day in shooting.

Fresh off a silver-medal finish in the women’s long distance cross-country ski races, Canada’s Brittany Hudak was back on the start line Wednesday – this time in the short distance biathlon race.

The 21-year-old from Prince Albert, Sask., made up 13 seconds on the field in her final lap to grab a spot on the podium. Hudak shot clean to clock a bronze-medal time of 18:30.7 in the women’s 6-kilometre standing race.

Hudak’s top-two rivals from the Ukraine grabbed the gold and silver medals. Oleksandra Kononova,
Kononova (16:15.3), , who had won six out of six possible gold medals at the IPC Nordic Skiing World Championships in Cable, USA, in January, set the golden mark at 16:15.3 (1+0), while Liudmyla Liashenko was second at 16:18.7 (0+0).

Having finished in second place in the men’s long distance cross-country skiing race, Stanislav Chokhlaev and guide Evgenii Fatkhullin (19:04.1) won the closest race of the day by just 0.5 sec ahead of Ukraine’s Anatolii Kovalevskyi with guide Oleksandr Mukshyn (19:04.6). While Kovalevskyi presented a clean sheet, Choklaev missed one shot and had to push hard to reach the top of the podium. Nikolay Polukhin and guide Andrey Tokarev (19:16.0) finished in third place.

Aleksandr Davidovich (21:11.8) completed Russia’s collection of gold medals of the day, topping the podium in the men’s sitting without missing a single shot. Germany’s Martin Fleig finished in second (21:45.8), 2.2 sec ahead of world champion Maksym Yarvoyi of Ukraine (21:48.0).

The IPC World Cup Finals continue on Friday with the biathlon pursuit races.