Kontiolahti, Finland, December 1. Tim Burke (Paul Smiths, NY) bounced back today with 12th Place in the Men’s 10K Sprint, two days after a disappointing 49th place in the season-opening 20K Individual.
Burke looked like a new person on both the tracks and the shooting range today, with only one penalty while finishing just 54.4 seconds behind the winner Ole Einar Bjorndalen. At the finish line, he had regained his characteristic big smile as he talked about today’s competition. “I feel so much better than in the 20K. I still feel a bit off, but the improvements are huge between Thursday and today. It is so good to be back on the scoreboard (for World Cup Points).â€
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<p>Before the competition started, Coach Mikael Lofgren commented, “I think Tim is a bit nervous today, but so am I.†If Burke was nervous before the competition, it disappeared as soon as he left the start. Eight-five competitors were on the tracks before Burke started, yet at the first split, he was in 13th place. After having a clean prone stage, he was in about the same position, but quickly closed on the leaders over the next 3.3K. US Biathlon High Performance Director Bernd Eisenbichler noted this, commenting, “Tim has found his pace and is moving up fast.â€</p>
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Bjoerndalen delivered an impressive reaction to his 29th rank in the Individual on Thursday. The 33-year-old logged a total time of 23:13.4 minutes and defeated a very strong Dmitri Yaroshenko of Russia by 12.7 seconds. Yaroshenko missed one of his targets in the prone shooting session but actually skied faster than Bjoerndalen. Germany's Carsten Pump was the surprise second runner-up, shooting clean in both sessions and finishing 23.3 seconds behind the winner. Pump thus scored his best ever World Cup result at age 31.
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<p>Pump was surprisingly calm after the race: “I felt great today and realized early on that the skiing was going really well. Then I just let it happen. I always wanted to show everybody that I actually belong with the fastest skiers on the German team. I did prove that in the European Cup, but never had much of a chance in the World Cup.”</p>
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here.
Live streaming coverage of tomorrow's 12.5km pursuit will begin at 7:45 EST at www.usbiathlon.org. Click the Biathlon World Cup logo at the top right of the page.
Sources: USBiathlon, www.biathlonworld.com
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