With a goal of a top eight on Saturday, the Canadians did two places better to tie a team-best sixth in the IBU World Cup men's relay in Hochfilzen, Austria. Russia won it by 20 seconds over France, and Norway was another 7.7 seconds back in third.
Tim Burke put it all on the line and missed a single target -- his last one -- for 13th in Friday's 10 k sprint on the first day of the Hochfilzen IBU World Cup. Also for the U.S., Lowell Bailey shot clean for 17th.
It wasn't easy, but two Canadian biathletes overcame bumpy conditions to have strong races in the World Cup men's 10-kilometer and women's 7.5 k sprints, with Nathan Smith in ninth and Rosanna Crawford in 12th.
Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey led the U.S. in the men's 20-kilometer individual on Wednesday, the first individual World Cup of the season, in 11th and 20th, respectively. Most everyone struggled with the wind, and the Canadians were no exception with top finisher Brendan Green in 49th.
Rosanna Crawford worked out her pre-World Cup nerves by leading the World Cup mixed relay halfway through leg one. The team's early advantage was negated by Zina Kocher's two penalty loops, but Crawford, Nathan Smith, and Marc-Andre Bedard can still call themselves the best three shooters in the race.
Canadian World Cup and IBU selection races wrapped up Friday at Frozen Thunder, with a second-straight sprint determining which eight men and eight women would start the season on the World Cup or IBU Cup. Four were prequalified.
Temperatures below -20 degrees Celsius didn't keep Canada's top biathletes from contending for spots on the World Cup and IBU Cup on Thursday, with Nathan Smith and Rosanna Crawford topping the competition in the opening sprints of trials at the Canmore Nordic Center.
Laval University hosted Sprint Rouge et Or on Tuesday, the first event of its kind on the Quebec City campus -- under the lights at the football stadium -- with nearly 125 competitors going head-to-head in an elimination sprint.
21-year-old Macx Davies had his first World Cup start on Friday - and promptly placed 42nd, qualifying for Saturday's pursuit. It perfectly illustrated Biathlon Canada's strategy for the weekend, resting their current Olympic team while giving some experience to the athletes it is grooming for the next Olympics.
Heidi Widmer, 22, rolled to her first individual gold and second title in as many days of racing at Canadian Nationals, while the 33-year-old IPC World Cup extraordinaire Brian McKeever won his first Canadian championship just days after flying from Sochi, Russia. Caitlin Gregg and Eliska Hajkova of the U.S. took first and second overall in the 5 k freestyle, and Canadians swept the men's 10 k podium.
Audrey Vaillancourt (Quebec) completed her set of three titles at 2013 Canadian Biathlon Championships with a photo finish victory over Megan Heinicke (Biathlon BC) on Tuesday.
As FasterSkier Spartan Race craze almost on a whim, albeit a whim that hinted at the possibility of a payout. A year later, the partners have competed in three more of the notoriously brutal obstacle races, and neither has missed the podium yet. In June in Montreal, Bédard placed second among men and Godbout third among women. A month later in Pennsylvania, Bédard was again second while Godbout won the women’s race, and last weekend...
Much like the U.S. and Canadian ski teams, many members of the North American biathlon squads have returned from Europe and decided to hop in some straight cross country races. Here’s a roundup of the results. – At SuperTour Finals in Craftsbury, Vermont, U.S. national team biathletes Susan Dunklee and Annelies Cook have contested both races so far in the mini-tour. Dunklee recently returned from Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, where she raced Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec — While Alex Harvey was the man of the day at Canadian Ski Nationals on Tuesday, Devon Kershaw, Lenny Valjas and the remaining World Cup crew (including Chandra Crawford, Dasha Gaiazova, Alysson Marshall and Kevin Sandau) also met a strong welcome after flying into Québec late Monday night and racing the next day. Cross-country ski fans, friends, family and media outlets came out to Mont Sainte-Anne to catch a glimpse of the...
MONT SAINTE-ANNE, Québec – Alex Harvey had no idea what he was in for. Or maybe he did. Fourteen hours after he and several other Canadian National Team members stepped off a plane in Québec City and concluded a 32-hour trip back from the World Cup Finals in Sweden, Harvey was back in his native Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, Québec, preparing to race again. If it had been up to Harvey, he would have slept in a little...
VALCARTIER, Québec – As she rounded the penalty loop at Myriam Bédard Center on Sunday, Rosanna Crawford looked up and threw down her headband. Winning the pursuit wasn’t going to be a walk in the park at the Canadian Biathlon Championships, and the 23-year-old from Alberta needed all the firepower she could muster. But the shooting portion was over; Crawford missed one shot in each of the last three stages for three total misses. The...
On the second day of Canadian Biathlon Nationals in Valcartier, Quebec, one thing looked exactly the same: Rosanna Crawford and Marc-André Bédard finished atop the results sheet. This time, the field was faced with 7.5 and 10 k sprints, with each competitor facing a prone and then a standing stage. In the men’s race, Bédard raced to a six and a half second victory over Scott Gow of Alberta, despite having three penalties to Gow’s...
After spending literally only a few days in North America since arriving home from biathlon World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany, Marc-André Bédard wasn’t overly confident in himself going into Canadian Championships at the Myriam Bédard Cener in Valcartier, Quebec. “I have only just returned from World Championships and I didn’t much know what to expect with the time change and my fatigue,” he wrote in an e-mail to friends, media, and sponsors. “But it seems...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – As has been the case so many times this week, the Canadian men’s team was simply not satisfied after the 20 k World Championships individual on Tuesday. “The course was nice,” Jean Phillipe Le Guellec told FasterSkier, struggling to find some positive notes from the race. His performance, he said, was not one of them. “My shooting was just – there was nothing I could do,” he lamented. “You can’t come in...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Two Canadians had high hopes for Sunday’s pursuit: Jean Phillipe Le Guellec was 14th after Saturday’s World Championship sprint, and teammate Zina Kocher 18th. They were poised, it seemed, to have career-best finishes. Le Guellec had never finished in the top ten at World Championships, but started just 12 seconds outside it on Sunday. Kocher was shooting for a top-16, which would have guaranteed her funding through Athletics Canada for the next...