HOCHFILZEN, Austria — Canada’s Rosanna Crawford finished a career-best fifth in a biathlon World Cup event Sunday.
Kaisa Makarainen of Finland dominated the women’s pursuit for her third straight World Cup win, finishing in 30 minutes 44.8 seconds. Russia’s Ekaterina Glazyrina was second at 31:19.2, while Anais Bescond of France won the bronze (31:31.3).
Crawford, a two-time Olympian from Canmore, Alta., and sister to Olympic cross-country skiing gold medallist Chandra, missed just one shot in her first of four rounds of shooting to narrowly miss the podium, finishing in 31:38.2.
"Today was a great day. Good, quick shooting really helped me today," said Crawford, whose previous best was an eighth-place finish.
Crawford started well back of the leaders in 34th — based on Friday’s sprint race — and so had huge ground to make up on the field.
"It was too bad that Friday’s skiing wasn’t that good, because I had a lot of work to do today. I felt much better than in the sprint, but hitting 10 for 10 yesterday in (Saturday’s) relay really gave me confidence going into today’s race," said Crawford.
Olympic pursuit champion Martin Fourcade of France shot flawlessly to win the men’s event.
Fourcade started the 12.5-kilometre men’s race 27.8 seconds behind Johannes Thingnes Boe, who won Friday’s sprint. The Norwegian stayed ahead of the field until missing two targets during his third visit at the shooting range.
Fourcade finished in 32:53.7 for his 32nd World Cup win and third of the season, beating Germany’s Simon Schempp, who also shot cleanly, by 4.1.
Jakov Fak of Slovenia missed once in his final shooting and came 10.9 back in third, followed by Boe, who trailed Fourcade by 16.2.