March 17, 2011 (Oslo, Norway) – Magdalena Neuner carried her successes from last week’s IBU World Championships into Thursday’s 7.5km Sprint, winning by an impressive 31.3 seconds at the Oslo World Cup’s opening race. The German’s victory also sealed her grasp on this years’ Sprint Cup, given annually to the best overall racer in the category.

Neuner, who now has 914 World Cup points, trails overall leader, Kaisa Mäkäräinen from Finland, by a margin of just 22 points, with a pair of races left in the season.

“I was in bed all day yesterday and was sick. I still did not feel well this morning and was thinking of not starting,” Neuner told Biathlonworld.com, “But then I decided to try and now I have the win…I only had one mistake today on the shooting range; that is very good.”

Though the end result was somewhat anti-climactic, the gold was in fact up for grabs throughout most of the race. Vita Semerenko of Ukraine shot clean in the prone stage to take the lead early on, followed closely by Daria Domracheva from Belarus. Just over 5 seconds back was Neuner and Tora Berger (NOR), both of whom also escaped without a miss.

The second shooting stage was less kind to the leaders. Neuner, Berger and Semerenko all suffered single misses while Domracheva hit just 3 targets to drop back to 11th with 2.5km to go. Neuner, displaying the same unfathomable speed that was on display at the IBU Worlds, pulling ahead of the pack for good after coming out of the penalty loop with a 12.5-second lead over Berger.

Domracheva pulled off an equally impressive feat, passing seven rivals in the final stretch to capture the bronze medal behind Berger, and just over a second ahead of Kuzmina.

Berger, who was racing in front of a home crowd, expressed mild disappointment hat she could not take the win. “I was really tired today, especially on the first loop. But the first shooting stage was really good and it felt better in the second and third loops,” commented Berger, “I would like to have a win here at Holmenkollen, but Neuner is in really good shape now so it will be hard.”

Domracheva, who was frustrated with her shooting performance, still had plenty to smile about. “I was not too happy with my two penalties today, but I am happy to have made it up to the podium,” the Belarus biathlete said. “It is important for me after winning a medal at the World Championships to have good performances here. I have two more chances to get a victory this week.”

The US team had a solid day in the standings, with Haley Johnson and Sara Studebaker finishing 22nd and 23rd with only one miss apiece.  Laura Spector placed 72nd with six misses.

Johnson had a solid performance just outside of her personal-best 21st finish last year in Pokljuka . “I was so glad I was given a second chance, so I’m just glad I took it”, said Johnson in an US Biathlon release. “I was lucky in prone shooting with no wind, so the mistake I made definitively was mine. In standing I tried to stay out of the wind shooting on range number 29, and that worked out quite well.”

No Canadians competed at Thursday’s sprint competition.

Full results HERE.

Results (Brief)

1. Magdalena Neuner, GER (0+1) 21:04.6
2. Tora Berger, NOR (0+1) 21:35.9
3. Darya Domracheva, BLR (0+2) 21:50.7

22. Haley Johnson, USA (1+0) 22:44.1
23. Sara Studebaker, USA (0+1) 22:45.4
72. Laura Spector, USA (3+3) 25:50.4