Independent U.S. biathlete Tracy Barnes and Jean-Phillipe Leguiellec, a member of the Canadian national team, won mass start races in Canmore, Alberta on Friday. It was the end of a three-race series put on by the U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) to select American athletes to send to World Cup and IBU Cup trips.
In the women’s race, Barnes had the cleanest shooting on the day, missing only two targets in four stages, which translated to an 18-second win over Anneliese Cook, a former member of the USBA development team. Cook missed one shot in each stage. Tracy’s sister Lanny Barnes finished third with three misses, 49 seconds behind Cook.
Yolaine Oddou of Canada finished fourth, narrowly edging out USBA’s Haley Johnson by only five seconds. Laura Spector, the winner of the first two races, finished sixth. Both Johnson and Spector were hampered by poor shooting, missing nine and seven shots, respectively. Oddon made up for slower skiing by missing only three shots. The most disappointed athlete at the end of the day was almost certainly USBA’s Susan Dunklee, who missed eleven targets, including all five in the last stage. She finished eleventh.
In the men’s race, Leguellec, who finished 6th in the sprint at the Vancouver Olympics, took the win by nineteen seconds over USBA’s Russell Currier. Marc-Andre Bedard, who won Thursday’s race, finished third. Lowell Bailey of USBA was fourth, and Bill Bowler, an American competing independently, was fifth; each of the top five athletes had five misses on the day and were separated only by their skiing. They were followed by USBA’s Zach Hall, who finished sixth with three misses.
