February 14, 2015 (Oslo, Norway) – Canada’s Rosanna Crawford claimed a solid 13th-place finish with one penalty in the women’s 7.5km Sprint at the IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway on Saturday at the famous Holmenkollen venue. The US camp was all smiles with Hannah Dreissigacker’s career-best 16th with clean shooting.

Rosanna Crawford © Nordic Focus

Darya Domracheva (Belarus) also shot clean on a calm day in the range for the gold with Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier taking the silver medal also with perfect shooting at 14.3 behind. Marie Dorin Habert, of France, was third at 29.9 back with one penalty.

“My legs were feeling a bit heavy today, but I knew that I wanted to start hard. I felt like I really made up time on the downhills and flats in the Thursdays race, so I made sure to really push over the top of hills and push really hard on the rolling flats,” said Crawford. “Once I was out on course skiing felt pretty good, I was getting good splits from the support staff on course. I made sure to work every part of the course and never slowing down.

“I missed my first shot standing. I just think I wasn’t quite ready for it and I should have taken one more breath, but I was happy to hit the next four. I know a biathlete shouldn’t complain about 90 per cent, but the number of times I’ve hit 9/10 is starting to get a bit annoying! Hopefully I can hit that magic 100 per cent in World Champs.”

Hanah Dreissigacker (USA) © Nordic Focus

“I’m really happy with today’s race,” said Dreissigacker. “It is always such a thrill to shoot clean, and it was especially fun to do it with my boyfriend and parents here watching. On the last lap I was getting splits about being five seconds out of 6th, and I fought really hard. The results were so tight around me…I hope that I can be skiing just a bit faster at world championships so that I can be even higher up if I shoot clean. But mostly, I’m just really psyched to have a new personal best.”

Women's podium © Nordic Focus

Canada’s Audrey Vaillancourt shot clean for the second-straight race to post a 36th-place at 1:30 behind the winner followed by Annelies Cook (USA) in 65th with three penalties. Canada’s Megan Heinicke was 68th suffering three misses, Susan Dunklee (USA) was 69th with four penalties, Sarah Beaudry (Can) was 80th with two misses, and Clare Egan (USA) was 91st with six penalties.

Full results here.