Susan Dunklee has qualified for Saturday's pursuit along with Joanne Reid (photo by NordicFocus)

HOCHFILZEN, Austria (Dec. 13, 2018) – Team USA will send two athletes into Saturday's women's pursuit race after Susan Dunklee (Barton, Vt.) and Joanne Reid (Palo Alto, Calif.) finished in the top-60 of Thursday's 7.5-kilometer women's sprint at the BMW IBU World Cup in Hochfilzen. Dunklee placed 34th with two penalties, 1 minute, 33 seconds off the winning time, while Reid was 44th, 1:48.3 back with one penalty.

"Today was a perfect winter day," said Dunklee. "Bluebird skies, a soft golden afternoon glow highlighting the mountain ridgelines, and heaps of powdery snow. The tracks were in great shape. My ski shape is slowly rounding into form. I felt a bit sharper today compared to last week. My prone has been solid and I'm trusting my shooting a little more this year."

Dorothea Wierer of Italy held on for a 21:04.9 victory in the women's sprint, just .6 seconds ahead of Finland's Kaisa Makarainen. Both women had a single penalty in standing. Clean-shooting Ekaterina Yurlova-Percht of Russia, 24.4 seconds back, finished third.

Clare Egan (Cape Elizabeth, Maine), coming off a career-best sixth-place finish on Sunday in the pursuit at the Pokljuka World Cup, was hampered by four penalties on the range today and finished out of the qualifying in 65th place, 2:22.1 back.

World Cup action from Hochfilzen resumes Friday with the men's 10km pursuit starting at 8:15 a.m. ET.

WAYS TO WATCH:
Fans can watch a same-day replay of World Cup races on the Olympic Channel (check your local listings).

Live streams will be available on all digital platforms: desktop via NBCSports.com/Gold, and mobile, tablet and connected television platforms via the NBC Sports Gold app. http://stream.nbcsports.com/gold/snow?pid=212787.

Streams will also be available on OlympicChannel.com and the Olympic Channel app. https://www.olympicchannel.com/…/de…/ibu-world-cup-pokljuka/.

The NBC Sports Gold premium package will give paid subscribers commercial-free access to each event across the span of the competition. Users can subscribe to the NBC Sports Gold Snow Pass here: https://www.nbcsports.com/gold/snow.

Replay with commentary is also available thru www.eurovisionsports.tv/ibu.

Women’s 7.5km sprint results