Burke gets 16th in last World Cup race of season

Biathlon World Cup: Khanty Mansiysk

Sun, Mar  28, 2010 - By Linda Jager, USBA

KHANTY-MANSIYSK, Russia - After a strong comeback in yesterday's Sprint competition Tim Burke (Paul Smiths, N.Y.) posted another Top 20 finish in the World Cup season's last individual race.

Burke finished the season today with a 16th place in the men's 15k Mass Start and 14th in Overall World Cup standings. In a strong field Burke had the fifth best skiing time, but due to four penalties overall he had no chance of moving up in the result list. He finished 1:14.4 minutes behind today's winner Dominik Landertinger (AUS). Overall World Cup winner Emil Hegle Svendsen (NOR) finished just two seconds in front of Burke.

"My skiing shape was again amazing, but four misses are definitively too much to finish up front,” said Burke. “The current level of the men's field is amazingly high and you have to show a good shooting to be able to score a podium. Nevertheless I am satisfied with the race. It could have been a better finish, but that's biathlon. I know what I have to work on and I am ready to come back even stronger next season.”

Team USA had several Top 20 Overall World Cup rankings finishing 10th in the Men’s Nations Cup, 20th in the Women’s Nations Cup, Burke 12th in Men’s Sprint and ninth in Individual, and eighth in Men’s Relay.

"Breakthrough is the word I would use to sum up this season for Tim Burke and US Biathlon as a whole," said US Biathlon Executive Director Max Cobb. "With top-three World Cup performances in the 20k Individual , the 10k Sprint, and the 15k Mass Start, and a sixth place in a 12.5k Pursuit Tim Burke showed his versatility and proved that he's a contender for the podium in every race he enters.  He lead the Overall World Cup standings in the middle of the winter and went on to finish the season with the highest rank ever achieved by an American - 14th.  Congratulations Tim and my hat is off to the staff who worked so hard to provide the coaching, physiotherapy, and ski service an athlete needs to succeed. Operation Sochi-2014 begins tomorrow."

Please visit www.biathlonworld3.de/en/ for a complete list of today’s race results.