March 12, 2015 (Kontiolahti, FIN) – Martin Fourcade (France) landed on the top spot of the podium in the Men’s 20km Individual with one penalty and strong skiing to take the gold over Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, who shot clean but finished 20.9 seconds back. Ondrej Moravec of the Czech Republic won his second medal of the world championships, claiming the bronze, 40.5 seconds back of Fourcade, with one penalty.

Fourcade’s brother Simon was the early leader with four clean stages as well, but Svendsen was also in the zone matching his clean shooting to take the lead by 18.8 seconds. The only skier to best the Norwegian was Martin Fourcade despite one penalty as he cleaned the final standing stage and raced home for the gold.

Fourcade wins © Nordic Focus

Canada’s Brendan Green, 28, was the top North American in 21st also with one penalty. The two-time Olympian, who has threatened the podium by finishing in the top-10 on several occasions this year, did not have the ski speed to be in the podium mix.

Brendan Green © Nordic Focus

“My results have been strong here all week, but I do have mixed feelings. My shooting has been quite phenomenal which is awesome, but I’ve been struggling with my ski form since our last World Cup after a crash in Oslo,” said Green, who set a new shooting record earlier this year knocking off 50 straight targets. “I was unable to train or shoot much at all leading up to Kontiolahti, being forced to address issues with my back so I really didn’t know what to expect performance wise.”

Lowell Bailey © Nordic Focus

Lowell Bailey was the top American in 24th-place – after missing two targets at the first shooting stage, Bailey settled down and hit the last 15 targets at the final three shooting stages finishing at 3:10 behind Fourcade.

“Today’s race started off pretty badly with two misses in prone,” Bailey said. “At that point, leaving the range, I just told myself that I needed to stay focused and try to follow through with my game plan for the rest of the day, regardless of where I would end up on the results list. I knew with two penalties, I was out of contention for a top 10, but I just tried to stay mentally together and ski and shoot as best I could going through the rest of the race. As it turns out, the rest of the race went really well and I was able to squeak out a top-25, enough to qualify me for the mass start on Sunday.”

Final podium (l-r) Svendsen 2nd, Fourcade 1st, Moravec 3rd © Nordic Focus

The USA’s Tim Burke was as high as 10th hitting 13 of his first 15 targets, but two misses at the final standing stage dropped him down in the standings and he eventually placed 31st. “The race today was definitely not what I was hoping for,” said Burke.

“This was one of my best ski races of the season but I could not match my skiing with the shooting. I am very happy to have qualified for the mass start and I am looking forward to the last two races of World Champs. I think this will be one of the strongest relay teams that I have been a part of, so it should be fun!”

Nordgren Gow 2015-03-12 at 1.25.23 PM.2

Leif Nordgren (USA) was close behind in 33rd while Canadian Nathan Smith struggled with his shooting, missing five targets to finish 44th. American Sean Doherty, who cleaned his first and last shooting stages, was 47th. Scott Gow (CAN) placed 63rd while his younger brother Christian finished two spots back in 65th.

Full results here.