Eight Place for Burke in Russia

This morning, Tim Burke and Jeremy Teela were quite anxious to race on a beautiful day like the one the Russian town of Chanty-Mansijsk is experiencing. They were anxious - but also relaxed and didn't put too much pressure on themselves. For Teela today's pursuit was the last World Cup race of the season and he even managed to move up eleven places although he felt "pretty tired the last days".

Before the race Teela hoped to finish in the Top30, yet with a strong field like in today's competition he showed a good result with place 44 and two misses overall.

Tim Burke proved to be in shape even more than some people might have thought before the race: "I felt really good today. Already in the sprint race my shape was quite good but I couldn't really show it." Today he could: Starting on place 23, Burke just missed one target on the shooting range and managed to finish the competition on eight place. "Besides that one miss it was a perfect competition. Probably even the best race of my season because I came from way behind and managed to move up all those places anyway." 

Burke wasn't angry or disappointed that he missed one target in the first standing shooting. "No one stayed clean today so I guess it is actually a good shooting performance. I also have to say that this result today motivates me a lot for tomorrow's mass start. I feel like I could do anything if I just pull it together somehow."

On eight place, Burke was 1:08.4 minutes behind today's winner Emil Hegle Svendsen who bet his friend and teamcolleague Ole Einar Bjoerndalen just with 0,1 seconds.

Tomorrow's mass start will feature the 30 best athletes of the overall World Cup. With Burke ranking on 25th place right now he is automatically qualified for the season's last race.