Prince George biathlete Matt Neumann knows he's close to making the cut for Canada's national B team.
But until all the math has been figured out, the 28-year-old Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member won't know for sure if he can start packing his bags for Europe to race on the IBU Cup circuit later this month.
As the Biathlon Canada senior team trials in Canmore, where he now lives, Neumann began Friday's modified relay as the fifth-ranked Canadian male biathlete.
Neumann finished 20th overall (11th among Canadians) is Friday's sprint relay and that was his throwaway race. The two races that will count for him was his seventh-place finish in Tuesday's sprint and a sixth-place result in Thursday's sprint. That left him ranked fifth among Canadians heading into Friday's race.
"Today was like a relay format where you have (three) spare rounds (for each of two shooting bouts) - everyone skied similar speed and it was completely decided in the range," said Neumann. " I used all six spares and a spare takes about 10 or 12 seconds (to load). Nathan Smith is one of the fastest shooters in the World Cup and today he had the opportunity to make up a lot of time on people.
"My skiing this week was within 30 seconds of Nathan and on par with Brendan, Scott and everyone. The window us really small for Olympics and this week I had about a 25 per cent chance of making the World Cup team."
Nathan Smith of Calgary won Friday's 7.5-kilometre sprint in 18:42, followed by Brendan Green of Hay River, NWT (11.5 seconds behind) and third-place Scott Gow of Canmore (36.4 seconds behind). Neumann was 2:24 off the winning pace.
The overall national team placings are determined by performance percentages, calculated by dividing the average of the top three finishers’ final times by the final time of each athlete. With three races in the trials this week, each athlete's best two results are used to determine who will make the national team.
Christian Gow of Canmore was already guaranteed a World Cup team spot, which left three positions up for grabs for the men at this week's trials. The fifth-to-eighth-place finishers in the performance percentage list will form the four-male Canadian team for the IBC Cup series, the next step down from World Cup level. Neumann said he won't likely know for sure until Sunday where he stacks up in the overall picture.
"The World Cup results I think are solidified and I'm not in the top four," said Neumann, who raced at the World Cup level in 2016 and was a regular on the IBU Cup circuit last season. "It's really tight between five, six, seven, eight and nine. I'll have an anxious weekend waiting for the math to be done. It's so close."
In her first race at the trials in Canmore, Julia Ransom of Kelowna won the women's 6.8 km sprint Friday in 20:20.4, just one-tenth of a second ahead of Emma Lunder of Vernon. Megan Bankes of Calgary was third (6.7 second behind Ransom).
Megan Tandy, a 29-year-old Caledonia club athlete who lives in Germany, finished sixth among Canadians (1:13.9 off the winning pace), while Caledonia's Sarah Beaudry was eighth (1:25.5 behind) and Burns Lake product Emily Dickson was 10th (1:52.2).
"Megan was suffering from an illness coming over from Europe," said Neumann, part of the Biathlon Alberta training team. "Something like that, when ski percentages are one per cent apart, something like a cold or choosing the wrong pair of skis can change the result.
"She had some fairly strong results from last year (30th in a World Cup pursuit, 39th in a sprint, eighth in a relay) that might be able to hold her Olympic spot. It all depends on what the other girls do this year, too."
Beaudry was fourth in the performance percentages after Day 2 of the trials, while Tandy was fifth.
Ransom and Rosanna Crawford of Canmore, who was fifth Friday, have their World Cup spots already locked up.
The first IBU Cup stop for Canadians will be Dec. 14-17 in Obertilliach, Austria. The BMW World Cup season gets underway Nov. 26 in Oestersund, Sweden.
