HOCHFILZEN, Austria — Stockholm native Russell Currier, Maine’s only representative at the 2014 Winter Olympics, is back in Europe competing on the International Biathlon Union World Cup circuit.
Competing in his second event of the new season, Currier placed 61st among 102 competitors in Friday’s 10-kilometer sprint race.
Currier missed two targets in the prone position and one in the standing position in posting a time of 27 minutes, 4 seconds, but improved greatly on his World Cup season debut a week earlier in Oestersund, Sweden, when he placed 90th.
Teammates Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey each posted a top 20 finish in the Austrian race to pace the four-man American contingent.
Burke, starting seventh on the day, went clean in the prone position and missed his last target standing, crossing the finish line in 13th place with a time of 25:14.5. That was just 39.6 seconds back of winner Johannes Thingnes Boe of Norway, who went clean in 24:39.9.
Bailey hit all 10 of his targets and skied across the line in 25:32.5, 57.6 seconds back of Boe and tied for 17th place. Fellow American Leif Nordgren was 51st in 26:53.9.
Burke, Bailey, Nordgren and Currier teamed up Saturday for the 4×7.5-kilometer relay, finishing 14th among 24 participating national teams and the first team one lap down. Russia won the event.
The World Cup schedule continues next weekend in Pokljuka, Slovenia.