Great Britain’s Richard Stannard secured a fourth Senior Biathle World Championship title at the Dubai International Marine Club while Petra Kurikova secured the women’s title.
The Englishman, who finished in a time 23 minutes 30 seconds, 11 seconds faster than second place Juan Dominguez from Argentina, is unbeaten in Dubai after winning the title in 2010.
Czech starlet Kurikova secured her first world title in a time of 13m26s, ahead of the previous two world champions Rachel Jones of Great Britain and Emma Davis from Ireland.
A record number of athletes turned up to compete in the 14th UIPM Biathle World Championships, with 21 gold medals handed out in total. After all the junior, senior and masters events, South Africa sat on top of the medals table with eight gold while Great Britain came second with seven gold. The UAE managed to snaffle one gold and two bronze.
“Brilliant, I love it every time,” Stannard told Sport360°. “It’s so hard, you remember the winning and forget the pain. I’m unbeaten in biathle so I’ll give a go next year when I’m 39. I’m going to have to work really hard to be ready for next year.”
Stannard didn’t have it all his own way. The first 500m went by a rapid pace before the athletes entered the water for the swimming section, at which point Stannard was all the way back in fifth. The Englishman emerged from the water with a strong lead that he held onto throughout the last 1,500m.
“It’s very important to have a good swim,” said Stannard. “It’s tempting to go out ridiculously quick, I don’t think that happened. I think most people were under control, but it was a little quicker than I wanted to go so (I hung back).
“The second run is just awful, you’ve just got nothing left. It’s so important to get a lead coming out of the water because it’s so hard to catch up, they weren’t going to catch me up over 30m.
“I’ve struggled with injuries recently. I was hit by a car in 2009 which made the 2010 title very special. I’m going to have a big year of weight training to build some muscle to help keep up with these young guys.”
The South African pair of Aynslee van Graan and Llewelly Groeneveld were crowned the women’s and men’s Youth A World Champions. Jean-Paul Burger created history by becoming the first Namibian to win an international biathle medal with the Youth B silver, despite the Namibian Modern Pentathlon Federation being established only last year.
Burger was just beaten by Robert Lightowler in the Youth B male category, while Haydy Adel Mohamed Kamal won Egypt’s only gold in the female Youth B race.
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