Crawford reaches goal right before Olympics
Veteran earns first World Cup biathlon medal for a Canadian woman since 2006
Rosanna Crawford has always been careful to look past her results at the bigger biathlon picture.
A respected 10-year veteran of the national team, she has sought to blaze a confident, competent trail so a steady succession of women will follow in her tracks into the sport she loves so dearly.
On Thursday, the 29-year-old from Canmore, Alta., ramped up that effort. She went 20-for20 at the shooting range, put in a great day on skis, and won a bronze medal on the World Cup circuit in Ruhpolding, Germany.
Suddenly, her career-best result became the bigger picture.
“Your whole life is spent dreaming about standing up there. To finally be able to do it, I’m really proud of myself,” she said Friday. “It was so sweet. One of the things that made it slightly sweeter was hitting 20-for-20, something I had never done before in my career.
“So being on the podium was kind of icing on the cake. Had I not been on the podium, I think I still would be as excited as I am right now.”
She hadn’t finished in the top 30 at a World Cup race this year, and her breakthrough result in the 15-kilometre individual competition has excited everyone in the Biathlon Canada ranks, from GM Andy Holmwood through head coach Matthias Ahrens, high performance director Roddy Ward and Crawford’s teammates.
Many of them had taken it as a personal affront when Biathlon Canada’s targeted excellence funding from Own The Podium was cut to a paltry $50,000 for this season, in response to the team’s failure to hit the podium during the 2016-17 season.
“For sure, we really wanted to show them that they made a huge mistake and I think we’ve done that time and again already this year with all the results, with the Gow brothers posting personal best after personal best, and of course all the women doing really well,” Crawford said.
Julia Ransom logged a pair of ninth-place finishes. Scott Gow broke into the top 20 and his brother, Chris, in the top 30. Nathan Smith and Emma Lunder hit the top 20.
Then Crawford hit the podium.
“Of course it is motivating for our young athletes, not just women, in Canada to see what is possible with hard work in a demanding endurance sport where it takes many years of perseverance to get to the podium,” Ahrens said.
Indeed. Before Crawford made the podium, Zina Kocher’s 2006 bronze in the 15-kilometre individual at Oestersund, Sweden, was the most recent medal win by a Canadian woman. Before that it was Myriam Bedard, who was a dominant force in the 1990s, winning a slew of Olympic and world championship medals.
Crawford had been struggling to find her form this year and was sent to an IBU Cup event just last week to allow another national team member to take a shot at Olympic qualifiers. It lit a fire under Crawford and she delivered. To do it so close to an Olympics is encouraging. But for now that’s all it is.
“Biathlon is such a crazy sport,” she said. “You never really know who is going to win the race because shooting can throw such a curveball into it. So this is just a really good confidence boost, but I don’t think you can look at it as ‘She’ll be on the podium in South Korea.’”
But Crawford will lead a strong women’s team to Pyeongchang — each of them has registered personal bests this year — and Ransom thanked Crawford for all she has done.
“To be training with her the last three years has been great. I can copy everything she does. She really has embraced her role as a role model. Taken me under her wing, given me tips, shown me what’s what. I owe a lot to Rosanna. She has been a wonderful teammate.”
Good for the sport. Good for the team. Good for her.
“I wanted to make sure I was always approachable, that I can teach these women as much as I can about the sport so that biathlon doesn’t fade out in Canada,” Crawford said.
“That would be the saddest thing ever, if one day there is no World Cup team from Canada, or there is only one athlete going. My goal is to really give back to biathlon in hopes that there will be a lot more athletes more frequently on the podium rather than just one every 12 years on the women’s side.”