March 15, 2014 (Kontiolahti, Finland) – American Susan Dunklee posted a strong eighth-place finish in today’s 7.5km sprint in Kontiolahti with one penalty at 35.7 seconds behind winner and local hero, Kaisa Makarainen, also with one penalty and a final time of 20:53.6. The Finnish star is on a roll with back-to-back victories.

Norway’s Tora Berger shot clean to finish in second at 6.2 seconds back while Gabriela Soukalova (CZE) also had a perfect day on the range finishing third at 12.9 seconds back.

Canada’s Rosanna Crawford had another solid day as well placing 16th with one penalty at 54s.0s behind the winner.

“Kontiolahti has been warm and we skied through several inches of deep, soft, sugar-like snow,” said Dunklee. “After a couple frustrating weeks of shooting, including a rifle malfunction last week, it feels great to hit 90% of my targets!  Before warming up, I got to watch Lowell in the flower ceremony for the men’s race and that was inspiring.”

Hannah Dreissigacker (USA) finished 41st today at 1:51.4 with two penalties, Canada’s Zina Kocher was 54th at 2:16.0 with three penalities, Sara Studebaker (USA) was 58th at 2:30.3 also with two penalties, Canada’s Megan Heinicke was 60th at 2:32.7 with two penalities and Annelies Cook finished 76th at 3:25.7 with four penalties.

Anastasiya Kuzmina (SVK) took and early with clean shooting in prone but suffered a penatly in standing allowing Makarainen to gain the advantage. Meanwhile Berger shot clean for the first time this season putting her in contention but no one could match  Makarainen’s skiing. Soukalova also proved her mettle cleaning all targets on her way to displacing Kuzmina for the final podium spot.

Full results here.