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Biathletes set sights on 2014 Games

Biathlon nationals draw hundreds of young athletes to Whistler Olympic Park
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GUNNING FOR GOLD Squamish's Megan Heinicke (right) and Audrey Vaillancourt battled neck and neck for the lead in Sunday's pursuit race, until Heinicke had some trouble on her third trip to the range. Photo by Andrew Mitchell

Biathlon is something of a niche sport in Canada these days, second last on Own the Podium's annual funding list — with funding decided based on how many medals Canada expects to win in future Olympic games. Compared to Europe, where tens of thousands of spectators go to races and millions more tune in on television, biathlon is just not on the national radar. At least, not yet.

Despite the sport's underdog status, it was a positive and energized crew of biathlon racers that turned out to Whistler Olympic Park last week for the biathlon national championships — the opening event of the Sea to Sky Nordic Festival. Spirits are high for good reason: Canada's World Cup level athletes have been making history recently, with Jean-Philippe Le Guellec winning a gold medal in the opening World Cup event and the men's relay team going on to place eighth at the World Championships. Athletes have also posted personal bests in many events, and qualified for a full eight spots, four men and four women, for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi.

The consensus in the sport is that the Canadian biathlon program has turned a corner, and that funding and exposure — and results — will only increase as athletes continue to progress.

"We have to be patient," said Alberta's Nathan Smith, who kicked off the biathlon nationals with a win in the sprint event and a second place finish in pursuit. "Not everybody can come in and race at the World Cup level with the top guys, it takes years of work and we're just starting to see all that hard work pay off."

Four of the eight Olympic spots are already spoken for, and Biathlon Canada's high performance director Chris Lindsay said there are 18 to 20 candidates that are in the running for the remaining spots — including athletes that have already competed at the World Cup level or have been part of successful development teams competing one step down on the IBU Cup circuit.

"I think we've got good motivation going forward," he said. "There's a lot of drive on the team, especially with JP's win this year, that we can do this. It's not about us being a second-class country in biathlon anymore.

"It's going to be hard, we don't have a lot of advantages, but it's possible — everything is within reach. And if we did it once, get a guy on top of the podium, then we can do it again. It's been really positive and the energy level is really high at every level of the sport — all of the kids that came here from across Canada to race in the junior events believe we can do it."

One of the athletes looking to capture one of the remaining four quota spots is Squamish's Megan Heinicke. She was on pace to win in both the sprint and pursuit races at nationals, but placed second in the opening sprint after missing three shots at her second trip to the range, and then placed third on the second day after missing seven shots — including all five shots on her third out of four trips to the firing range. Each missed shot equals one lap of a 150-metre penalty loop, and adding that much distance to her races had a huge impact.

"It was a pretty rough race," she said after the sprint on Saturday. "I didn't feel good skiing and I had some near misses on course, and then I had some problems with the wind (while) standing (and shooting). Three times around the penalty loop is definitely too many.

"(The wind) affects you quite a bit when you're standing because you have so much surface area, your whole body is affected by the wind. It's all about finding the right tension, the right balance... but it's also a little bit how tired your legs are at the moment."

The wind was also a factor in Sunday's pursuit event, where athletes left the start gate in the order they finished the sprint in five second intervals. That's not a lot of time to make up on a 2.5km loop, and athletes battled each another for position on the course and at the range.

Heinicke spent most of the winter training in Germany with her husband and coach, iLmar, racing and working to qualify for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. Heinicke said she's about two-thirds of the way to qualifying for one of the two remaining women's spots.

"I'm relatively confident," she said. "I believe in myself and I believe in my training. I've had a tough time putting the shooting together this year and I spent a lot more time in the penalty loop than I intended, but I'm pretty confident in my skiing and I can work on the shooting. I'm motivated to follow my plan."

Audrey Vaillancourt finished three laps of the women's 7.5km sprint course on Saturday in 21:35.5, hitting every target while prone and standing. Heinicke was second in 23:07.1 after missing three targets while standing and Corrine Malcolm of the U.S. was third in 23:42.2, missing two targets in total. The third Canadian was Kathryn Stone of Alberta.

In the 10km pursuit, Vaillancourt was victorious once again. It was a close race for the first three quarters of the event and she was neck-and-neck with Heinicke coming into the range for the third time. Vaillancourt missed just one shot while Heinicke missed all five, and by the time Heinicke completed her penalty loops roughly two minutes had gone by and she had dropped to third.

Vaillancourt had a scare in her fourth and final trip to the shooting range, missing her first two targets before she settled down and hit the next three. She went on to win the race in a time of 31:43.4, followed by Julia Ransom of the B.C. team in 32:27.3 and Heinicke in 33:24.4.

"It was a really great race," said Vaillancourt. "I got a little scared on the last standing (athletes shot twice prone and twice standing) with the two misses, it was a little bit on edge, but it was a great race. It was windy, but it was windy for everyone.

"I didn't know (Heinicke) missed five. I just heard a couple of misses and then I got out as fast as I could. It was a really exciting race. That's what I love about pursuit — you're racing with people all the time and it's really exciting."

Vaillancourt is also hoping to snap up one of the remaining Olympic spots. "Everything is possible," she said. "At this point I would love to, but we'll see... I have to train really hard this summer of course, and have good fall preparation, and we'll be on our way."

In the men's 10km sprint, Alberta's Nathan Smith dominated, finishing the course in 25:53.7 after missing two shots. Teammate Kurtis Wentzel was second in 26:53.6 after shooting perfectly at the range, while American Bill Bowler pulled up third in 27:11.7. The third Canadian was Quebec's Marc-Andre Bedard who finished fourth overall in 27:23.9 after making four trips to the range. The top B.C. athlete was Matthew Neumann in sixth, also missing four shots.

Smith, one of a handful of national team members that opted to compete at nationals instead of an event in Russia, came to Whistler Olympic Park determined to finish his season on a high note.

"Personally I had a bit of a tough season, it didn't go as well as the year before and I'm not really sure why," he said. "There are some things I can work on for next season. I was just hoping to race well here and go into the cross-country nationals after this to have some fun at the end of the season."

Smith is also focused on qualifying for the 2014 Games, and was recently part of the World Championship team that placed eighth overall back in February. He said that team confidence is up after that result, and Le Guellec's gold medal at the start of the season — the first World Cup medal ever earned by a Canadian male skier, and Canada's first medal in the sport since Myriam Bedard in 1994.

"I'm really aiming to go to the Olympics, that's my main goal," said Smith. "To do that I have to have some good races in December."

Nathan Silver also technically won the men's 12.5km pursuit on Saturday, but was penalized 30 seconds for an early start. That put him in second to Alberta's Kurtis Wenzel by 6.8 seconds, while Raleigh Goessling of the U.S. placed third. The third Canadian once again was Marc-André Bédard.

There were only a handful of local athletes competing, including Squamish's Hunter Sones. Sones, 14, opted to compete an age level higher than usual for the experience, and placed 25th in senior boys in the sprint.

"I'm racing against 16-year-olds, and there are some fast 16-year-olds out there," said Sones.

Sones started biathlon at the age of five, and has been told he's the youngest person to start the sport. He's now a member of the BC Biathlon team, which is where he qualified for nationals.

"My shooting wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, but I had a pretty good ski and was just hoping to be in the top 25," he said.

"I'm hoping to go as far in biathlon as I can. I also run competitively and I'm getting into triathlons, but biathlon is my main sport. It's fairly fast-paced, and it's a great endurance sport."

One B.C. athlete that did well up against strong teams from Alberta, Quebec and Ontario was Jasper McKenzie, who was fourth in both events.

"Today the skis were so fast, the conditions on course were great and usually how I shot would have been good enough for a medal, if not good enough for a win," he said. "It was just so much fun out there today, so much fun racing. I love pursuit, there's always someone ahead of you to catch, you know exactly where you're supposed to be and it's fun to reel people in."

The biathlon nationals continued on Tuesday with the mass start race, and finished on Wednesday with the team relay.

In the mass start event, Vaillancourt made it a hattrick on the women's side, making every shot in four trips to the range to take the women's event by just one-tenth of a second. Squamish's Megan Heinicke overcame her shooting issues from earlier in the week and missed just two shots in the range, but in the end she couldn't catch Vaillancourt at the line. Corrine Malcolm of the U.S. placed third, while the third Canadian was B.C.'s Julia Ransom.

In the men's event, Nathan Silver regained the podium by a comfortable margin, missing three shots at the range. Marc-Andre Bedard was second by 44.8 seconds, and Bill Bowler of the U.S. placed third. The third Canadian was Kurtis Wenzel, 1:38.2 off the pace.

The results from the team relay on Wednesday were posted after press time.