January 22, 2012 (Antholz, ITA) – On the final day in Antholz, France flexed its relay muscles again as their men’s team took top honours on Sunday in the men’s 4×7.5km relay following in the wake of their women’s team gold on Saturday. German grabbed the silver 12s later followed by Austria rounding out the podium in third place.

Both Canada and the USA put in strong performances placing 7th and 10th respectively. For the Canadian men’s biathlon squad their effort matched their previous career-best result.

Brendan Green put the Canadians in contention with a solid opening leg. Then Jean-Philippe Le Guellec of Shannon, Que. upped the ante with another strong effort to set up the final two legs where their young anchor, Nathan Smith, shot with conviction to deliver the seventh place finish with a time of 1:14:19.1 – France completed the race in 1:12:14.7.

“This is an awesome result and we will take a lot of positives away from this one,” said 28-year-old Perras in a team release. “Considering everything, it is a great day and I would not be surprised if results like this start to come now more regularly.”

The US team, lead by Lowell Bailey, started well and was in second at one point but lost some ground in the latter half as Bailey couldn’t match his initial shooting prowess. Jay Hakkinen faired better handing off to Tim Burke who also started well but like Bailey his shooting faltered during the second half of his leg. Anchor Leif Nordgren held his own to claim 10th for the USA holding off Norway who also suffered on the range today.

“Today was not perfect, but it highlighted some of our strengths, such as Lowell in second place until standing, I shot fast and well, Tim skied amazingly fast, and Leif showed he is strong under pressure,” commented Hakkinen in a US Biathlon release. “ I think it was an ideal race to give us confidence and show what we need to work on going into the short one week break before the next World Cup in Oslo.”

It was Norway who took an early lead while the second round of shooting created a four-team race but Norway fell backwards while France, Austria, Russia, & Germany took to the front of the race.  In the final leg, it was Martin Fourcade of France holding off the competition, leading the French to their relay victory.

“It’s a nice surprise for us,” said France’s lead off man, Jean Guilluame Beatrix, regarding the double French relay victories. “I don’t know if we expected to win the relay yesterday and today, but we are glad about that.”

The next stop on the E.ON IBU Biathlon World Cup series is round #7 in Oslo, Norway.

Full results HERE.