After a holiday break, the biathlon season resumed with World Cup racing action in Oberhof, Germany and IBU Cup races in Brezno-Osrblie, Slovakia. 

World Cup:

This past weekend the US women’s contingency racing the biathlon World Cup consisted entirely of GRP athletes. The first race was a sprint in which Susan Dunklee posted her best result of the season finishing 14th with only one standing miss. She was followed by Clare Egan in 32nd with two standing misses, Emily Dreissigacker in 70th with one prone miss, and Hallie Grossman in 79th. This race marked Hallie’s World Cup debut! For the men, Jake Brown finished 68th.

Next up was relay day in which both the men’s and women’s teams placed 12th. For the women, Susan scrambled using one spare per stage. She tagged off to Clare who also used one spare per stage. Hallie raced the third leg using one spare in her prone stage. Emily anchored for the team using 2 spares per stage. Collectively the team had one penalty and used 12 spares. In the men’s relay, Jake was joined by USBA teammates Sean Doherty, Leif Nordgren, and Paul Schommer. Jake anchored for the team and they finished with two penalties and 9 spares. 

Susan was the only US athlete to qualify for the mass start event in which she finished 21st.

IBU Cup:

The IBU Cup race weekend kicked off in Brezno-Osrblie, Slovakia with a short individual race. For the women, Kelsey Dickinson placed 65th while Alex Howe finished 45th for the men posting the top US men’s result. The next race was a sprint in which Kelsey placed 52nd. In the men’s race, Alex had a strong day placing 28th with only 2 prone misses. 

Next stop on the World is Ruhpolding while the IBU Cup will stay in Brezno-Osrblie for another week. More info and results can be found at biathlonworld.com.