February 16, 2012 (Canmore Alta.) – Nathan Smith made it three victories in three starts at the International Biathlon Union Cup sprint race Thursday, Feb. 16 in Canmore, Alberta. Racing on his hometown track, Smith once again eclipsed the field, posting a winning time of 26 minutes, 13.1 seconds on the 10-kilometre course.

“Today was a bit tougher skiing, but I still managed to do it without going clean in shooting again,” said Smith who missed one target turing the shooting stage but shot fast and skied faster than his rivals.

Despite shooting clean, Friedrich Printer of Austria was second for the second consecutive race, finishing four seconds behind Smith in a time of 26:17.1. Third was Sergey Kylachin of Russia in 26:20.2, who also did not miss a target.

“I didn’t know how close he [Printer] was, but I knew I had to fight really hard to stay ahead of him,” added Smith, who was four seconds quicker in the end. “(The spotters) were always saying between one and three seconds, so I knew it was really close.”

The Canadian won all three sprint races conducted during the IBU Cup events held at the Canmore Nordic Centre over the last six days. He did not race in Wednesday’s 20km individual race.

Also having a strong showing was Canadian Marc-Andre Bedard of Valcartier, Que., who placed fifth in 26:37.4. The top American was again Jeremy Teela. The Heber, Utah biathlete was 12th with a time of 27:10.7 missing two targets.

Women’s Race
In the women’s event, a Russian once again stood on top of the podium. This time it was Aleksandra Alikina who shot clean to help her post a winning time of 21:23.4 over 7.5km. Second place went to Juliane Doll of Germany in 21:44.4 and third was Laure Bosc of France in 21:50.7.

Marina Korovina had won all three previous races — two sprint and a 15km individual — and had the fastest course time but four misses on the range meant a 12th place finish on Thursday.

Two Canadian skiers finished sixth and seventh. Rosanna Crawford had her best finish of the week to take sixth in a time of 22:12.2. “Four races in six days, it was tough but it was fun,” said the Canmore skier. Melanie Schultz, also of Canmore, was seventh in 22:20.0

The top American was Laura Spector of Lennox, Mass., in 8th place with a time of 22:22.4. “I had a good race in the sprint the other day, so it seemed I was pacing the course well. I just tried to do the same thing and keep my technique together a little more so I would be more efficient,” commented Spector, who had only one miss in shooting. “I also tried not thinking about shooting too much, because that is when I make mistakes. It all came together.”

Tracy Barnes of Durango, Colo., finished in 10th place in 22:34.1 while twin sister Lanny Barnes finished 17th in 22:59.8. “I just went for it, and it was fun,” said Tracy. “I think this was some of the funniest racing all year. The field was smaller but the competition was still so tough.”

The series now switches back to Europe for the final event in Altenberg, Germany March 7-11.

Men’s results
Women’s results

We apologize for the errors in our initial posting of this race report.-ed