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Black looks back on Jr. Worlds

Biathlete rises to the occasion for Canada
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SNOW STAR Larissa Black performed well at the IBU Youth/Junior Championships. Photo by Lucas Smith

At the International Biathlon Union (IBU) Youth/Junior World Championships, Whistler Nordic Development Centre biathlete Larissa Black held her own against a strong field that boasted many senior IBU Cup athletes.

At the competition, which ran from Jan. 26 to Feb. 3 in Osrblie, Slovakia, Black helped the Canadian team to a ninth-place finish in the Junior Women 3x6-kilometre relay event with Nadia Moser and Emily Dickson.

"It was super cool and those girls are super supportive and I definitely look up to them," she said. "Being the anchor in that race, too, was really cool. Being able to ski the course with some of the best skiers in the world, I'll remember it forever, for sure."

Being the last of her team to start, Black had time to see what was happening out on the course. Though Moser's performance gave Black a surprising lead to try to protect, she was encouraged to stay calm and not try to do more than she could do.

"I was warming up and then I went into the start pen where you can see all the standings on the screen," she said. "I looked up at the screen and we were tagged in 10th, and then Nadia went and she slowly made her way up to third and on her last loop, she was in second, so it was pretty crazy.

"I went up to my coach in the start pen and asked 'Are we in second?' and he said 'Yeah, but it's no big deal.' I just took that into my race, remembered what I needed to do, stuck with that and tried not to think about second place. I just tried to hold the place as much as I could and do well."

In the individual races, Black took finishes of 54th (in both the 12.5-km individual and 7.5-km sprint) and 53rd in the 10-km pursuit, putting up similar results to teammate Dickson, a senior IBU Cup competitor.

Black, who turns 20 on Feb. 15, said while the competition was stressful, she responded well to the pressure, as it lit an additional fire underneath her.

"It was really cool because in Canada, it's not as big. When you go over there, it's a bigger field of girls. It's interesting to see how seconds make a difference in places, rather than minutes like it does in Canada," she said. "It definitely pushes you, for sure."

Black felt she generally performed well, but could have placed higher if she had made a few more shots. She was proud of how she skied and will look to build on that momentum as she is set to wrap her season in Scandinavia with races in Norway and Sweden starting later this month.

"I definitely want to take all the skiing experience I learned there," she said. "My shooting has been doing really well, but I have some personal things to figure out with that. But the skiing, (I need to be) pushing on every single part of the course. The girls that do the best out there are the ones that work the hardest and I need to take that into the races when I go over to Norway."

With a handful of European races now under her belt over the past two seasons, Black is adapting to the culture change of competing in locales where the sport has greater popularity.

"It's definitely more structured, for sure. It's more intense. The vibe on the training days is that there are about 40 people in the range and you're fighting to get on a mat to shoot," she said. "That makes your focus way more heightened. You're thinking about what you need to do, thinking about everyone around you.

"You know you're going to race them in a few days, so you definitely want your focus to be a lot higher than you would in Canada."

Black's Whistler Nordic Development Centre teammate, Lucas Smith, also competed. Smith, originally from Winnipeg, helped the youth relay team to a 20th-place finish while he took 52nd in the pursuit, 59th in the individual and 60th in the sprint.