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Jan
16
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5th place in Ruhpolding-historic finish!!!
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Jan 16, 2009,
2:48 PM ET
One of the major goals for the US Biathlon team is to win an Olympic medal in the relay. Lowell Bailey, myself, Tim Burke, and Jeremy Teela just moved closer to that goal with a 5th place in the Ruhpolding World Cup relay.
Each of us has our own unique strengths which we put to use, and even more importantly, none of us made any major mistakes. Lowell has proven very strong in the scramble and a reliable shooter which was good enough to start us out in 8th place. My job is to strengthen our position and my own ‘superpower’, if I may call it that, is that I can shoot standing shooting very quickly which helped move the team into 6th position. Tim is in charge of breaking the competition and getting a lead which he showed perfectly capable of doing when he moved us farther forward into fourth position. That leaves Jeremy, whose job is quite simply to get to the last 400 meters and outsprint whoever he is with, which he did impressively, holding off a strong charge from Russia and passing France along the way.
Naturally, 5th place is not a podium, although it is the best USBA finish in 20 years, but it was a demonstration of our ability and our capability to do even better.