Last Updated: 22.Dec.2014

GRP/USBA biathletes Susan Dunklee and Hannah Dreissigacker recently wrapped the third IBU World Cup of the season with a sprint, pursuit, and mass start in Pokljuka, Slovenia. Dealing with low snow conditions in Slovenia, and in fact all over Europe, they nonetheless pulled off strong results in the last World Cups before the holiday break.

Biathlon is known for being a fickle sport, one where the shooting and skiing all have to come together on the right day for a good result. Previously this season, Hannah hadn’t quite found her stride and wasn’t able to qualify for any pursuits (top 60) based off her sprint results. However, during the sprint in Pokljuka she combined clean shooting with strong skiing and netted a career best place of 17th, solidly qualifying her for the pursuit. Susan finished only 3 seconds behind her with 2 penalties in 19th place. This gave them an excellent starting position for the pursuit, which is based on the time back in the sprint. Susan had 5 penalties (out of 20) but battled through a head cold to finish 28th, while Hannah miscounted one of her penalty laps and ended up with a 2 minute time penalty to take 56th. 

Although Susan was still coming off her sickness, she needed to race the mass start the following day in order to maintain her top 25 World Cup ranking. She had four penalties early on in the race and lost touch with the main pack, but was able to finish 22nd, and clinch 22nd overall in the World Cup standings. Both Hannah and Susan will return to the US for the holidays before heading back to Europe for more World Cups in Oberhof, Germany. As always, full results and live video are available on the IBU Datacenter and BiathlonWorld.com.