FORT KENT – Uschi Disl and Liv Grete Poiree provided spectators at the biathlon World Cup here with another exciting battle in an event meant to excite fans in the stands and watching on television.

And the athletes participating in Friday’s men’s and women’s pursuit competitions played it to the hilt.

They waved to the crowds, pumped their fists, looked directly into the stands after shooting bouts – joked about all the drama after the races.

“We planned it all,” Germany’s Disl said with a wide smile about the moments of drama in her duel with Poiree of Norway.

Disl emerged the winner of the 10-kilometer women’s pursuit race at the Maine Winter Sports Center for the second day of women’s competition, again edging Poiree. Poiree’s husband Raphael Poiree of France also picked up his second win of the week, and it was another easy one for him. He finished the 12.5-kilometer men’s race with a lead of 1 minute, 22.8 seconds on his closest competitor, Carl-Johan Bergman of Sweden.

Both Poirees remain on top of the overall World Cup standings. Three-time winner Raphael Poiree extended his lead over Norway’s Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, who was 12th in Friday’s pursuit. Liv Grete Poiree leads Olga Pyleva of Russia, while Disl jumped from sixth place to fourth.

The International Biathlon Union added the pursuit to World Cup and world championship competitions in 1996. It was created for television viewers, U.S. Biathlon press officer Jerry Kokesh said.

Indeed, Friday’s pursuit had a much different look from the sprint races which were held the first two days of competition here, and the races had an exciting feel to them as the competitors overtook each other or fell back on the penalty loop.

About 4,500 spectators – the most of the four-day event so far – oohed and ahhed as shooters either shot clean or missed a few. Even the racers seemed to get into the intense atmosphere – as Raphael Poiree skied over a berm to the left of the grandstand he raised his arms. He waved to the crowd as he skied down the final straightaway toward the finish.

Disl and Liv Grete Poiree, Raphael Poiree’s wife, both did the same thing as they neared the finish line.

“I just wanted to give a big thank you to the people who were there,” Raphael Poiree said of a moment in which he looked into the stands after a shooting round.

It’s the format of the pursuit that makes for extra excitement. Biathletes start from three different chutes in the order and time intervals of their finish in the previous sprint event. There are four shooting bouts, two in the prone position and two in the standing position. The four bouts make for frequent place changes. For each missed target the biathlete must ski a 150-meter penalty loop.

Of the Americans competing Friday, Rachel Steer of Anchorage, Alaska, had the most impressive results. She showed a marked improvement on the range Friday, racking up a clean day with 20 targets made. She started 33rd but jumped up to 21st, 2:43.3 behind Disl. Four of the 47 athletes who finished the race had clean outings.

“I am honestly surprised,” Steer said with a smile. “That just goes to show that that’s how exciting biathlon is. Nobody can clean every day, nobody’s skiing like a rocket every single day. You just have your on days and off days. … I am really surprised that I cleaned today. I did not feel on my game this morning. I wasn’t feeling totally focused.”

Steer had two penalties in the women’s sprint Wednesday.

In the women’s race, both Disl and Poiree had clean shooting days Wednesday. But that wasn’t the case Friday.

Disl started out with a 22-second lead on Poiree and maintained that pace as both women cleaned their first time on the range. Disl was still ahead when they missed two shots apiece in the second round. Poiree grabbed a 9.2-second lead after the third shooting bout as she missed one target while Disl had to ski two penalty loops.

But Poiree missed her first and last shots of the final round, while Disl made four in a row and missed the fifth for a fairly comfortable lead and win. Poiree finished 23.9 seconds behind Disl.

“I don’t know if it was the wind, but I think it was my misses,” Disl said. “In the first standing shooting, I was a little nervous, my knees [started] shaking. I wasn’t sure if I started too fast or it was only me nervous and so the two misses were bad. But I was only 10 seconds behind her and I had her in my sights.”

Germany’s Kati Wilhelm was third, 51.3 seconds behind the winner. Six of the top 15 women were from Germany.

Steer’s shooting may have been deadly, but she felt her skiing was off-target.

“I am very disappointed with my skiing today,” she said. “I don’t feel like I ever got a handle on how to ski on this icy stuff. I was concerned about that from the start.”

The only other U.S. woman to finish was Lanny Barnes, who came in 45th. Jill Krause Beste and Yarmouth native Sara Granroth were lapped and so were eliminated from the race.

In the men’s race, the battle for second place was close as several large packs formed along the course, with 10 to 15 shooters on the range often at the same time and skiers zooming up and down hills in groups.

As the winner of the sprint Thursday, Poiree had a 1:02 start on Germany’s Michael Greis, who was second in the sprint. Poiree shot 100 percent Thursday.

Even though Poiree missed three targets, he showed extreme speed on the range, and that may have helped him in the penalty loop. He took only 18 seconds to shoot in the third stage and 24 seconds in the fourth stage while most of the biathletes needed around 30 seconds to shoot.

Poiree was uncertain why he had trouble on the range after a perfect day Thursday.

“I don’t know why I missed,” he said. “The wind, it’s just a little bit to [affect the shooting],” he said. “… Maybe I was not aggressive enough. I don’t know.”

Carl-Johan Bergman of Sweden finished in second place, the first top-3 finish for the 24th-ranked skier this year. Before Friday his best finish was eighth in Thursday’s sprint and an eighth in a 20-kilometer individual race in December.

Russia’s Nikolai Krouglov took third, almost a week after his second-place finish in the pursuit at the Lake Placid, N.Y., World Cup stop.

Both started from behind – Bergman in eighth place, Krouglov in 23rd – and had to ski through the pack of biathletes. Krouglov moved to 22nd after the first loop, then jumped to 10th after the second loop. He worked his way into eighth going into the final circuit.

But neither saw any mishaps despite all the skiers jockeying for position.

“It was a good race and I think the track was really good and of course it’s icy in the curves,” said Bergman, whose girlfriend is a cousin of Liv Grete Poiree. “I didn’t see anything like that today. [There were] a lot of people around.”

Neither man had a penalty in any of the four bouts.

“I have to shoot good and I am in good shape,” Bergman said.

Jeremy Teela had the top U.S finish on the men’s side, coming in 28th (3:50.1 behind Poiree). Jay Hakkinen finished in 46th place and Tim Burke was 49th, the final finisher in the field. Jacob Beste was lapped.

The World Cup wraps up today with the mass start for men (10 a.m.) and women (11). In that event, the competitors start at the same time and have four rounds of shooting. If competitors are lapped, they must withdraw from the race.

Participation is normally limited to the top 27 athletes in the Cup standings because that’s the minimum number of targets required for a World Cup event, but there are 30 targets at the MWSC range here. As of Thursday night none of the top 30 biathletes had dropped out of the mass start.

None of the U.S. athletes are ranked high enough to qualify for that race.

Poiree said he took it a bit easy on the final loop to save a bit for the mass start. The Poirees will be the first husband-and-wife team to have the top spots for that event.