Final Para Biathlon World Cup day in Vuokatti offered some fun races as the athletes competed in sprint pursuits. In this competition format the athletes start the morning with a sprint and then do a two-shooting pursuit to follow it up.

In men's sitting class, Ukrainian Taras Rad took his second win of the weekend with clean shooting and fast skiing. Chinese duo Mengtao Liu came in second with one miss, and Zixu Liu third with three misses. In women, it was German Anja Wicker who brightened her two silvers to a win today with clean shooting. As in men, we saw also two Chinese at the podium with Shiyu Wang in second with one miss and Yuxin Zhai in third place with two misses.

Men's standing sprint pursuit went to Canada as Mark Arendz shot clean in both shootings and crossed the finish line first. Marco Maier from Germany took second place with one miss, and Serhii Romaniuk from Ukraine shot clean and came in third. In women's standing, it was Canadian Natalie Wilkie who managed to win despite two shooting range misses. Second place went to Ukrainian Oleksandra Kononova with one miss, and third place to clean shooter Yujie Guo (CHN).

In the vision-impaired class, Ukraine took a double win with Iaroslav Reshetynskyi and Maksym Murashkovskyi, both with one miss. After a finish-line battle, it was Shuang Yu who came in third with four misses. In women, Leonie Maria Walter continued her good performances and took a win with a perfect job in the shooting range. She was followed by Yue Wang (CHN) with two misses and Johanna Recktenwald (GER) with three misses.

The next Para Biathlon World Cup will be competed in Val di Fiemme (ITA) 29.-30. January 2025.

Photos: Ahonen/IBU