The fourth day of competition of the 2013 IPC Nordic Skiing World Championships in Solleftea, Sweden, was dominated by skiers from Ukraine, who secured a total of six medals on Thursday (28 February). Defending world champion Olena Iurkovska started the Ukrainian medal spell by winning the women's sitting 6k biathlon race in a time of 21:17.3. With only one missed shot, which resulted in a penalty lap, the five-time Paralympic gold medallist was 43 seconds ahead of silver medallist Anja Wicker from Germany. After crossing the finish line Iurkovska said: "The race went smooth today, except that I missed one shot and I broke one of my poles. Other than that the race was perfect. "After the first cross-country race I had two days of rest, to relax and gather all my strength and I could feel the power today." Second-place finisher Wicker missed two of her 10 shots but showed a strong performance on the slope to win her first international medal. The 21-year-old, who will now be a German medal hope for Sochi, said: "It is so exciting. I can't believe it, I am speechless at the moment. I think it needs to sink in first. I did not expect to win a medal, not in this field. But on the course it went really well. I am just really happy right now." The bronze medal went to 22-year-old Marta Zaynullina from Russia, who finished her race with one missed shot in a time of 22:13.2 Iuliia Batenkova and Oleksandra Kononova added a gold and a bronze medal to the Ukrainian medal tally in the women's standing 6k biathlon race. It was the second gold medal for Batenkova in as many days, as she had already won the women's standing long distance race on Wednesday (27 February). The multiple Paralympic medallist clocked an overall time of 18:54.6, missing just one out of 10 shots. Kononova and Russia's Anna Milenina swapped places on the podium from Wednesday's cross-country long distance race. This time, Milenina took home the silver medal, missing four shots and finishing in a time of 19:35.3. Kononova missed one shot more than Milenina, and crossed the finish line 16 seconds behind Kononova. Team Ukraine bagged two more medals in the men's standing category with Grygorii Vovchinskyi finishing in second and Ihor Reptyukh in third place. The gold medal in this category went to Canada's Mark Arendz. The Canadian, who will turn 23 on Sunday (3 March) won himself an early birthday present by missing just one shot and finishing 20 seconds ahead of Paralympic medallist and double world champion from 2011, Gregorii Vovchinskyi. Reptyukh added a second bronze medal to his personal tally, after already winning bronze in the cross-country skiing long distance race. The last Ukrainian medal of the day was won by Anatolii Kovalevskyi and his guide Oleksandr Mukshyn, who finished second in the men's visually impaired category with a perfect shooting performance and a time of 22:04.1. They had to leave the gold medal to Russia's Nikolay Polukhin and his guide Andrey Tokarev, who were unbeatable on the slope today and finished 57 seconds ahead of the Ukrainians.
