Canadian “ski-shooter” Julia Ransom had the race of her career with a 19 th -place finish at the world cup at the Canmore Nordic Centre. It was a ”luck of the draw” kind of day on course as wind gusts tormented biathletes, Friday (Feb.
Canadian “ski-shooter” Julia Ransom had the race of her career with a 19th-place finish at the world cup at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
It was a ”luck of the draw” kind of day on course as wind gusts tormented biathletes, Friday (Feb. 5) in the women’ s 7.5 kilometre sprint at the BMW IBU World Cup Biathlon.
Ransom finished as the top Canadian in 21:15.9 and was the only one on her team to shoot perfectly (10/10) on the range.
Sarah Beaudry had a personal best and finished 38th (21:59.2; 9/10), Zina Kocher finished 56th (22:25.1; 5/10) and Rosanna Crawford placed 72nd (23:07.9; 6/10).
Celebrating her 23rd birthday on Feb. 4, maybe the secret ingredient to Ransom’ s success was wine and cupcakes the night before the biggest race of her life.
Ransom commented on the youth movement in Biathlon Canada, which saw 23-year-old Canmorite Macx Davies (25th) finishing as the top Canadian man in a Feb. 4 sprint.
“We’ re a new generation coming through,” said Ransom. “We love to have fun, we joke with everybody; it’ s a new team starting to form, not that we don’ t love the old guys ... it’ s just a new generation starting.”
Taking home gold was Ukraine’ s 2013 sportswoman of the year and Olympic gold medalist Olena Pidhrushna (19:56.9; 10/10).
In a silver medal performance was Krystyna Guzik of Poland (20:04.4; 10/10) and the bronze finisher was Italy’ s Dorothea Wierer (20:09.3; 9/10).
It was a rough day on the course for Canmore’ s Crawford, as she battled wind bursts throwing her off, and sickness leading up to the race, but the thought of missing world cups at home wasn’ t on the two-time Olympian’ s agenda.
“I just couldn’ t pass up the opportunity to race at home for the world cup, it might never happen for me again,” said Crawford.
Crawford did not qualify for Saturday’ s mass start and it’ s questionable who will start in the single mixed relay Sunday (Feb. 7), which is scheduled to be Crawford and Nathan Smith.
“The relays on Sunday are supposed to be Nathan and I, but they’ ll definitely look at the results and who has a stronger showing,” she said.
The emotional story of the day, though, was Kocher, a long-time biathlete and trailblazer for women’ s biathlon.
After 15 years with the junior and senior national biathlon teams, a teary eyed Kocher is “pretty sure” she’ s ready to hang up her skis.
“Last night I was trying to find a lot of inspiration to race today,” said the 33-year-old three-time Olympian. “I went through a lot of old albums and I saw a lot of newspaper articles, a lot of pictures with all my teammates in all the good times. We were a family and we worked together and those are the biggest memories for sure.”
Beaudry, the youngest Canadian competing at 21, was a late replacement in the sprint. Beaudry took over for Megan Tandy after Tandy broke her arm jogging on Feb. 2.
Beaudry took full advantage of her opportunity and recorded a personal best on the course.
“I’ m definitely super happy to take the misfortune of Megan and have a good race, almost in a way for her,” said Beaudry.
Tomorrow (Feb. 6) the men and women’ s mass start kicks off at 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.
For those in the public looking to watch the free event, a shuttle will run from the downtown Canmore bus stop on 9th Street will run to the Canmore Nordic Centre. The shuttle runs every 15 minutes on race days, beginning at 7:45 a.m.
