December 04, 2018 (Pokljuka, Slovenia) – Team Canada delivered the best shooting on the range in the Mixed Relay on Sunday at Pokljuka using only two spare rounds to claim 10th as France took home the first mixed relay of the season in 1:10:02.8 using five spare rounds.

The Swiss team surprised with a second place finish, using nine spares at 38.7 seconds back, while Italy finished third, with one penalty and eight spares at 52.1 seconds back.

A fall on the opening leg of Sunday’s mixed relay resulted in a broken binding and dashed all hopes for Team USA as Susan Dunklee went down along with Sweden’s Emma Nilsson on a descent during the first leg of the relay. The US squad battled back to finish 15th out of the 23-team field.

Canada’s Rosanna Crawford and Megan Tandy both used only one spare in standing while Nathan Smith and anchor Scott Gow cleaned all targets for a stellar start to the season. This followed Megan Bankes and Christian Gow’s 6th place result in the Single Mixed Relay earlier in the day.

Dunklee recovered to use just two spares on the shooting range as Clare Egan, Leif Nordgren and Sean Doherty brought it home with nine spares overall to finish 15th at 4:19.8 off the pace.

“It happened so fast I’m not sure what happened,” said Dunklee of her spill. “Either my binding sheared off and caused the fall or I encountered a particularly nasty species of snow snake. I’m really impressed with my teammates today and we posted a respectable result in spite of a rough start to the race.”

Anais Bescond, Justine Braisaz, Martin Fourcade and Simon Desthieux claimed the victory. Russia finished fourth at 1:17.3 back, while early leaders Finland placed fifth at 1:30.9 back. Norway finished sixth at 1:51.1 back.

Results here.