Beaudrys living the Olympic dream
For Leisbet and Pierre Beaudry, the Pyongchang Olympics are their dreamcome-true Games.
As the parents of Canadian team biathlete Sarah Beaudry, they are relishing every moment watching their daughter perform under the intense scrutiny of the world’s biggest winter sports spectacle. Sarah lived up to the pressure last Thursday in Pyeongchang in her first Olympic competition when she placed 29th out of 87 in the women’s 15-kilometre event, missing just one of 20 targets in four shooting bouts. She was also scheduled to ski the lead leg of the 4X6km women’s team relay early this morning.
For the Beaudrys back home in Prince George, catching glimpses of 23-year-old Sarah racing with the best in the world on TV and on three separate internet feeds was the next best thing to being there. “We were just amazed about it, she had a really good race and we were so excited for her,” said Leisbet. “It was really neat because she had set up a Facebook group with all the family so our son (Sylvain) was involved and her uncles and her cousins. “To see your child struggle and work hard and just be part of a team and work toward a lifetime goal, it’s so exciting to see her so focused and be able to do that.” The Beaudry clan is now a two-generation Olympic family. Her grandfather on her dad’s side, Gabriel Beaudry of Ottawa, competed for Canada at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London in pairs rowing.
As the alternate on the Olympic team, Be- audry went to South Korea knowing there was no guarantee she would race at all. She knew there was a chance she could be called into service for the relay, but her spot in the individual race only happened because Megan Tandy of Prince George, her Caledonia Nordic Ski clubmate, decided she was too sick to race, still feeling the effects of a cold and fever which kept her out of the pursuit race. Beaudry learned the day before the individual race and started 10th in the order.
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Usually the top-ranked biathletes choose to start early and the medal positions are quite often determined early on. But because the course for the individual race was icing over as the race progressed, creating faster conditions, some of the medal contenders decided to delay their starts near the end of the 87-racer field and that kept the outcome in doubt right to the end.
“It was nice to watch it live,” said Pierre. “We stayed up all night the night before and we got a message from Sarah that it was canceled (due to adverse weather) and then we weren’t sure she would race because if Megan felt better she would have stepped back in.”
Throughout her biathlon career, Beaudry has looked up to Tandy as a role model and was thrilled to be sharing in the 29-yearold Tandy’s third Olympics. She certainly didn’t expect to take Tandy’s spot in the individual race.
“Megan had to decide and she very graciously decided and Sarah said, ‘It’s good news for me and bad news for Megan,’” said Leisbet. “It was kind of two-sided, especially to have someone else from Prince George being sick and giving her that opportunity.”
Seeing Sarah race in the Olympics is the culmination of years of hands-on work at Otway Nordic Centre for Pierre, who took over as Sarah’s coach for four years after Jeremy Campbell and Fiona Coy stepped down as biathlon coaches at the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club. “Sylvain started first and he was interested right off the bat and she kind of followed her big brother,” said Pierre. “He started when he was 10 and you had to be 10 to get in. Jeremy and Fiona got these guys going and she was a little on the young side, but because we were helping out she kind of slipped in.”
Beaudry was coming off a difficult season last year, complicated by her father’s health. Pierre had a brain tumour removed last winter while Sarah was competing in Europe and she lost her World Cup spot and ended the season on the IBU Cup circuit. Until this past Christmas, her Olympic team spot was still in doubt and she still needed two top-60 finishes to qualify. But she nailed them in Oberhof, Germany, when she finished 23rd in the sprint and 51st in the pursuit., then raced to a 23rd-place finish in the individual race in Ridnaun, Italy, her best-ever World Cup placing.
“It’s showing her maturity that she can manage all that, being part of this team,” said Leisbet. “The Olympics are just a different race than a World Cup and to manage all that is amazing.”
The Beaudry internet bandwidth will be maxed out again for today’s relay with family members in Berlin, Shanghai and Toronto tuning in on the Facebook live chat page while they watch several video feeds. • The Caledonia Nordic Ski Club is hosting an Olympic viewing party at the Rotary Lodge at Otway Nordic Centre tonight at 7 to watch the replay of the women’s 4X6km relay, which was scheduled to start live at 3:15 a.m. PT.