"My performance yesterday wasn't up to what I had hoped," Halsted said.

Halsted placed 13th with only 50 percent accuracy on the shooting range.
On Jan. 29 he hit 17 of his 20 shots and covered the 12.5-kilometer course in 49 minutes and 47 seconds to finish eighth.

Dan Cnossen ( Topeka , Kan. ) rallied from misses during his first two rounds of shooting to shoot flawlessly the rest of the race. His efforts earned him a 10th-place finish with a time of 50:15 in the sit-ski division. He connected on 18 of his 20 shots.

"I knew if I didn't bring it together, the race was going to go downhill fast," he said.
Roman Petushkov of Russia , who won Saturday's shot-course biathlon, repeated as sit-ski champion in 44:51, despite missing four shots on the day.
For each missed target, athletes had to ski a 150-meter penalty loop, which added crucial seconds to their times.

Kelly Underkofler (St. Paul, Minn.) continued her strong showing in the shooting range, connecting on 19 of her 20 shots, just missing the podium with her fourth-place finish in the women's standing division with a time of 50:32.
Finland's Maija Jarvela claimed her second biathlon gold of the competition, finishing in 40:54 over the 10 kilometer. women's course.

"I felt good and shot well, so I'm happy with how I did today," Underkofler said.
Sarah Edwards (Winter Park, Colo.) placed fifth in the women's sit-ski division in 1:29:31. German Anja Wicker improved on her second-place finish from the day before to win in a time of 50:18.

The Russians continued to dominate the visually-impaired division.
Lysova Mikhalina led a quartet of top Russian finishers in the women's race, shooting flawlessly and finishing in 37:33. Russians claimed the top two spots on the men's side, led by Nikolay Polukhin in 37:42.

Visually-impaired athletes shoot with specialized guns fitted with lasers on their sites that emit audio feedback as the shooter's aim closes in on a screen target.

Russian Kirill Mikhaylov won the men's standing division with a time of 37:24.
Athletes conclude the Wisconsin-portion of the competition Monday with middle distance races.

Races start at 10 a.m. with sit-skiers skiing 5 kilometers and standing and visually-impaired athletes skiing 10 kilometers. Competition concludes Feb. 1-2 at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis, where athletes will compete in a sprint and middle distance race. Races begin at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 1 and 10 a.m. Feb. 2.

It's the first time the United States has hosted a major Paralympic Nordic ski event in seven years.

U.S. Paralympics, a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee, is hosting this IPC Nordic Skiing World Cup in partnership with Central Cross Country Ski Association (Madison, Wis.) and the City of Lakes Nordic Ski Foundation (Minneapolis, Minn.).

For more information on these organizations, visit www.cxcskiing.org and www.loppet.org.

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