Makarainen wins biathlon World Cup title in dramatic finish
TYUMEN, Russia (AP) Kaisa Makarainen of Finland won the women's biathlon World Cup for the third time in her career on Sunday after a dramatic finish to the final race of the season.
Makarainen took the title by only three points with a sixth-place finish in Sunday's 12.5-kilometer mass start event. Her main title rival, Anastasia Kuzmina of Slovakia, was 11th after taking a penalty on her final shooting stage.
Makarainen finished on 822 points, against 819 for Kuzmina and 804 for Sunday's race winner, Darya Domracheva of Belarus. She won by 1.8 seconds from Slovakian Paulina Fialkova, with Anais Chevalier of France third. Makarainen also won the mass start discipline title.
Men's World Cup champion Martin Fourcade of France added the mass start title to his collection on Sunday despite coming 19th in a race won by Maxim Tsvetkov of Russia.
It was the third season in a row that Fourcade had a clean sweep of the discipline titles.
