Weekend Racing Wraps Up Action in Finland for GRP Biathletes
Written by GRP Biathlete Raleigh Goessling
Susan Dunklee racing at World Championships last year. Photo by Karen Brown.
The GRP World Cup biathlon squad has wrapped up a busy weekend of competition in Kontiolahti, Finland.
Jake Brown was the first Craftsbury athlete to take to the snow on Saturday morning in the men’s Pursuit competition. With Pursuit format rules in place, Jake began his 4 shooting, 5 loop day with bib number 44, 1:52 behind the winner of the Sprint Tarjei Boe of Norway. Jake fought hard through challenging wind on the shooting range to finish in 58th place, with 8 misses out of 20 shots. Brown was joined by his US teammate Sean Doherty, who placed 55th of 60.
Next up were Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan and the rest of the US Women’s relay squad. Susan started brightly, with a clean prone stage. Dunklee entered the second shooting with the lead group but picked up a penalty in standing. Thanks to fast skiing, Susan tagged to fellow GRP athlete Clare Egan in 9th place. Clare took over and also produced a clean prone stage. Egan missed two shots from her magazine in standing but mopped up the mistakes with two relay rounds to avoid the penalty loop. Clare also put together a solid performance on the tracks. Deedra Irwin and Joanne Reid, the last two legs for Team USA chipped in solid performances which led to a 9th place showing by the American women.
Sunday began with Jake Brown in action with the US men’s relay team. Like the women, the American men began brightly with Sean Doherty and Leif Nordgren keeping the team within striking distance of the Top 10 places through the first 3 shootings, before dropping back. Jake took the anchor leg and avoided the penalty loop on both his prone and standing bouts. Team USA ended the day in 18th position.
The last competition of the weekend included Susan Dunklee and Clare Egan in the women’s Pursuit. Susan started off in 31st place and took to the course 1:44 behind Sprint competition winner Hanna Oeberg. Clare Egan began her day with bib 48 and started 2:05 behind the winner. Thanks to fast skiing and 3 clean stages in a row, Susan improved her ranking over the course of the competition to garner 26th place at the finish, despite two misses in the final standing stage. Egan cleaned two stages and performed well on the tracks but picked up 5 penalties between the two middle shooting bouts of the competition. This caused her to slip to 49th place at the finish.
Biathlon World Cup action begins again on December 11th in Hochfilzen, Austria. Hochfilzen will host the 3rd and 4th round of the World Cup, the final two stops before the Christmas break. For full results, race reports, replays and all things biathlon, check out https://www.biathlonworld.com/.