Egan leads GRP and USA into the New Year with Top 10 Finish

Written by GRP Biathlete Raleigh Goessling

Clare Egan has continued her purple patch of good form during the second IBU World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria. Egan was once again able to crack the top 10 in the Sprint competition with an excellent 9th place result, Clare made one mistake on the range in standing, and skied to a world class time on the tracks. 

Susan Dunklee incurred one penalty lap in prone and standing to finish in 46th. Susan’s result was second among the US women’s team and qualified her for the Pursuit race. 

In the men’s race, Jake Brown was agonizingly close to securing a place in the Pursuit competition but came up short and finished in 61st place, just 4 seconds out of 60th. The silver lining for Brown is that he was excellent on the tracks, registering the 25th best ski time. 

Clare Egan’s pursuit started brightly with no misses from the prone position. Clare continued her world class skiing, but was tripped up in the standing position, incurring three penalties in her first standing stage, and one in her last. Egan ended the day in 18th place. 

Susan Dunklee moved down one place to finish in 47th in the Pursuit. Dunklee cleaned one prone and one standing stage butmade three mistakes in her first prone stage and one in her final standing stage. 

By virtue of her results thus far on the World Cup, Clare Egan qualified to race in the Mass Start competition. Only the top 30 athletes in the overall World Cup standings may race in the Mass Start. Clare started with bib 21 and finished in 19th place. Egan continued her stellar prone shooting and swift skiing, with only one miss in prone. Standing again proved a challenge with Clare collecting 4 misses between her two standing stages. 

The IBU World Cup now takes a break for the remainder of December, but picks up again from Oberhof, Germany on January 4th. Jake Brown, Susan Dunklee and Clare Egan are all expected to feature in the first World Cup races of 2021.