Canucks earn 6th in IBU mixed relay

Canada’ s mixed four-person relay had one of their best results in years on the final day (Feb. 7) of the BMW IBU World Cup Biathlon.

With clear blue skies and in front of a cheering home crowd at the Canmore Nordic Centre, the Canuck team of Rosanna Crawford, Sarah Beaudry, Macx Davies and Brendan Green finished sixth place at 1:07:13.1.

“Really we’ re at the point now where we can put any two men and two women together and come away with a top eight, top six performance, so I think we’ re really happy to have delivered today,” said Crawford. “It’ s just so much fun going out there with your team, it’ s just such a different feeling than an individual race.”

Green anchored the squad and said his teammates had positioned him well for the final stretch despite some jitters.

“(I was) definitely more nervous today than I typically am,” said Green. “I think just the last race of the week in Canmore, the home town crowd is great and so enthusiastic, I was really nervous today, but these guys did a great job and fortunately I was able to handle it well.”

Team Germany earned the gold medal (1:05:38.8), the Italians took home silver (1:06:51.7), and Norway had a bronze medal performance (1:07:02.6).

Earlier in the day, the single mixed relay saw Canucks Nathan Smith and Julia Ransom teaming up for the first time.

The duo just missed cracking the top 10, finishing 12^th at 39:48.7.

Smith said it was his best race this week after placing 16^th in the mass start and 34^th in the sprint.

“My legs felt a lot better, not amazing, but pretty good until the last lap when I had to fight (Latvia’ s Andrejs) Rastorgujevs, he’ s one of the fastest here very day so he took off on that last lap, though, and I couldn’ t quite stay with him, but I was pretty happy with it,” said Smith.

Ransom was chosen by Biathlon Canada to pair with Smith in the relay after her 19th place finishing in the women's sprint.

"It was hard, it was very hard. I haven't done that format before, so your legs they flood with lactate pretty quick, I felt that one for sure on the standing (target shooting)," said Ransom

France’ s single mixed relay won top honours (37:59.0), with Austria coming in second (38:44.2), and Norway taking the last spot on the podium (38:54.3).