December 14, 2012 (Pokljuka, Slovenia) – Canada’s Rosanna Crawford leaped up the field in the women’s 7.5k Sprint at the IBU World Cup in Slovenia today, cutting her PB result earned last weekend in half finishing a stellar 12th with a perfect shooting record to trail winner Gabriela Soukalova (CZE) by only 52.1s.

“Yep new PB!! I am really excited about todays results. It’s always nice to shoot clean, but to also place a personal best in the top 12 is fantastic! Shooting has always been my strong point. I am also pretty fast in the range, shooting time and getting in and out. I feel like this makes up a little bit for not being as fast on the skis,” Crawford told Trax.

“I didn’t feel very good in my warm up this morning so I didn’t go as hard as I normally would in my warm up. My first loop was pretty slow and I got faster as the race went on and had my best loop my last loop. The opposite to last weekend where it was really hard to get to the finish line!

“The snow was tricky, the track was much slower than it had been in training days, but it was pretty even for the whole field. The range was also pretty calm which was nice. Defiantly the shooting made my race for me. It’s hard to be in the mix for top 15 with missed targets,” she added.

Soukalova also earned a big PB – her career-first World Cup victory. She out-gunned second place, Miriam Goessner (GER), who faced two penalties in the second round of shooting, to win by 2.1s. Nadezhda Skardino (BLR) scored the bronze, accumulating zero penalties and trailing by 30.1s.

Susan Dunklee (USA) was the top U.S. finisher, placing 14th and 53.2s back. Teammate Annelies Cook was 40th. Canadians Megan Heinike and Megan Imrie finished 45th and 90th, respectively.

“Today was a great day for me and for the team.  We had three women not only qualify for tomorrow’s pursuit but also score World Cup points. After years training together and putting in lots of hard work, it is nice to see that pay off. There was heavy snow falling during the race making the skiing a little tough.  I didn’t quite have my highest gear, but I don’t think
most of the field did,” Dunklee told us.

“Hitting 90% of my targets was awesome.  I been struggling a lot on the range the last couple weeks but had a few really good training days earlier this week that helped me regain confidence.  Tomorrow is another day to practice what we do everyday- skiing and shooting.  I’m looking forward to it and we’ll see what happens,” she concluded.

For tomorrow’s Pursuit Crawford is optimistic but realistic… “For the pursuit tomorrow I am just going to take it one shot at a time! It’s supposed to snow 40cm over night which could make things even tougher tomorrow,” offered Crawford.

Results
1. Gabriela Soukalova (CZE) 22:09.8
2. Miriam Goessner (GER) 2.1
3. Nadezhda Skardino (BLR) 30.1

12. Rosanna Crawford (CAN) 52.1
14. Susan Dunklee (USA) 53.2
40. Annelies Cook (USA) 1:45.2
45. Megan Heinike (CAN) 1:57.9
90. Megan Imrie (CAN) 4:17.9

Full results HERE.