March 24, 2019 (Oslo, Norway) – US Olympian Clare Egan took home her career-first IBU World Cup medal capturing bronze in women’s 12.5km Mass Start at the final round of the series in Oslo, Norway.

She was the best on the range as the only athlete with one missed target finishing 10.4 seconds off the winning time of Sweden’s Hanna Oeberg who suffered two penalties. Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff was second a mere 1.3 seconds behind the winner with three missed targets.

Egan’s first podium finish on the IBU World Cup circuit slots her into 18th overall in the IBU World Cup season rankings, a big step up from her 63rd-place finish last year. The lone Canadian was Emma Lunder in 28th with seven penalties to finish 53rd overall.

After cleaning her first 15 targets, Egan came into the final standing shooting stage in medal contention along with Oeberg and Slovakia’s Paulina Fialkova. Following her only miss of the race, she exited the penalty loop in third place, seven seconds behind Eckhoff and 15 seconds ahead of fourth-place Denise Herrmann of Germany. Firmly entrenched in the bronze-medal position, Egan wanted more.

She chased down and passed Eckhoff to move into second place with 1.5km to go, but could not hold off the veteran Norwegian, eventually moving back to third but sewing up her spot on the podium.

“I decided that I wanted to do one more year, just for fun, just to see how much I could learn and how good a biathlete I could become,” said Egan of her decision to continue in the sport. “I had the assistance of my new coach, Armin (Auchentaller), and I had a lot of fun and I became a great biathlete.”

This ends off a stellar year for Egan, as she posted the top eight finishes of her career this season, including three finishes in the top-10. With her performance on Sunday, she also becomes the first American woman to medal at an IBU event since Susan Dunklee captured silver in the mass start at the 2017 IBU World Championships.

Results here.