Coleraine, MN, The two women form the Maine Winter Sports Center won the Youth and Junior categories. They were the only repeat winners today, as both Leif Nordgren (Marine-on—St. Croix, MN) in the Youth Men and Wynn Roberts (Battle Lake, MN) in the Junior Men were edged out of first place by small margins.
With their victories today, McNamee and Toussaint, along with Mark Johnson (Grand Rapids, MN) in the Junior Men’s category have now locked up positions on the Junior World Championships squad. Roberts, Nordgren, and Laura Spector (Lenox, MA) pre-qualified for the Championships.
Meagan Toussaint had the best performance of the day in the Junior Women’s 10K, with only two penalties, one in each of the two final standing stages. Her winning time of 38:52 put her 4:21 ahead of second place finisher, Brynden Manbeck (Grand Rapids, MN). Manbeck who is recovering from a hamstring injury had ten penalties. Third place went to Ellen Anderson (Grand Rapids, MN) with six penalties, 7:20 back.
Toussaint’s teammate, Hilary McNamee was equally convincing in her win over Addie Byrne (Bovey, MN) in the Youth Women 7.5K, scoring a 31:40 to 33:45 victory. McNamee had five penalties to Byrne’s six. Third went to Grace Boutot (Fort Kent, ME) also with six penalties, 3:48 back, while Jessica Caron (Fort Kent, ME), with four penalties was a mere 10 seconds behind Boutot.
With familiar winners in the women’s categories, different athletes from yesterday stood on top of the awards podium today in the two men’s categories.
Mark Johnson who earned his fifth consecutive trip to the World Championships bested Wynn Roberts 39:04 to 39:14 today. Solid shooting fueled Johnson’s victory, as he had only four penalties to Roberts’ seven. Coach Vladimir Cervenka commented, “Yesterday was Mark’s first biathlon competition of the year. He is in college fulltime back east now. But he raced very smart today and was cautious on the shooting range.†Three extra penalties pushed Roberts into second place, despite having a faster ski time than Johnson. Third today went to Newt Rogers (Fort Kent, ME), with eight penalties, 2:06 back, while Travis Mann-Gow (Burlington, VT), with five penalties was an additional 20 seconds behind Rogers.
After a disastrous day in the sprint competition yesterday, Ethan Dreissigacker who competes for the Ethan Allen Biathlon Club in Jericho, VT, won the Youth Men’s 10K today. Dreissigacker yesterday cross-fired and missed some penalty loops resulting in six minutes of time added to his finish, pushing him down to 14th place. He made up for that today with only three penalties to gain an 18-second margin of victory over Leif Nordgren. Nordgren, battling flu symptoms all week, had seven penalties. Third and fourth places went to Preston Butler and Raleigh Goessling (Duluth, MN), each with nine penalties, 2:25, and 2:34 back, respectively.
Although there were some changes at the top of the results list today, Coach Cervenka was again pleased with the performances in general. “Today was a little bit harder than yesterday for some athletes. The wind was shifting on the shooting range and some athletes had problems adjusting. Still, Meagan, Ethan, Hilary, and Mark all had good performances in these conditions.â€
Complete results are posted at www.USBiathlon.org .
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