Caledonia athletes dominant at national trials
Of the four fastest female skiers Thursday at the Biathlon Canada selection trials in Canmore, three wore the colours of the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club.
Prince George was prominent in the third and final race to determine Canada’s teams for international competitions later this year. After six kilometres of racing in the individual start race, Caledonia racer Emily Dickson, a native of Burns Lake, crossed the finish six seconds behind race winner Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, Yukon. Dickson was second, followed by third-place Sarah Beaudry and Megan Tandy, who both consider Prince George their hometown.
Dickson, 21, shot clean in both shooting rounds which helped make up time on Moser, who had a 22-second penalty tacked onto her time for missing one target in her standing round. Moser clocked 19:57.5, while Dickson came in at 20:03.5, 1.3 seconds ahead of Beaudry and 8.7 seconds in front of Tandy. Beaudry cleaned both rounds, while Tandy had one miss in her prone round.
The 30-year-old Tandy, who is now based in Germany, won Wednesday’s sprint race and was second in Tuesday’s sprint.
In the men’s race Friday, on a 7.5 km route, senior team member Christian Gow set the winning pace (18:58.3), edging his brother Scott by 8.9 seconds to win his second of three trials events. Both Canmore natives got through the race without a miss on the range.
Nathan Smith of Calgary was third, 33.7 second off the winning pace. He missed two of the five prone targets. Matt Neumann of Prince George was 14th (20:42.16), 1:44.3 behind.
Racers were each allowed three spare rounds in their clip. The women’s race drew 27 biathletes while 41 entered the men’s race.
On Monday, Biathlon Canada will name its three teams for the international circuits – IBU World Cup, IBU Cup and IBU Junior Cup.