No matter what happens in the coming years when Sarah Beaudry resumes chasing down medals on the World Cup biathlon tour, her Olypmic debut in Pyeongchang, South Korea, will remain one of her most cherished memories.
As a last-minute qualifier, Beaudry was named an alternate on the five-member Canadian women's team and was considered a longshot to race. But when Megan Tandy developed a chest infection right before the women's 15-kilometre individual race Feb. 17, she made the agonizing decision to give up her spot in the race to Beaudry, a relative newcomer to the World Cup circuit who followed in Tandy's tracks as a Prince George girl who developed her passion for biathlon racing with the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club.
Thrust into the pressure-cooker of racing in the Olympics, the ultimate of winter sports competition, Beaudry was a cool customer, leaving just one of her 20 targets standing in four rounds of shooting on the way to a respectable 29th-place finish, faster than 58 other Olympians.
"It was so awesome - obviously I felt bad about Megan getting sick, but I was able to put down a good race, a race I was super-happy with at the Olympics," said Beaudry. "Just to experience it and get to put on the bib it was something I've been working for.
"In the individual race you get one-minute penalties for every miss and to only have one was awesome."
Beaudry started the race 10th out of the gate, unusual because in most cases the top athletes start in the first two of four tiers when the tracks are smoother and faster. But because the race was run in the evening in gusty conditions with temperatures falling, some of the higher seeds chose to start late in the race. That resulted is some significant TV time for Beaudry, with a potential audience in the hundreds of millions tuned in.
"Obviously being fifth-ranked on the team I got the seed that was ranked least preferable, which was the first seed, and that's why I was out at the start," said Beaudry. "I'd done a lot of Seed 4 and it was neat to start at the beginning.
"The Olympics is obviously a big race and that's why we were racing at night (in Pyeongchang) so they could watch it in (prime time) in Europe. In Korea, biathlon isn't that big and there weren't tons of spectators so it almost felt smaller than some of the big World Cups in Europe. In Oberhof you literally can't hear the other skiers because the crowd is so loud. You can't hear anything."
Beaudry also skied the lead leg in the women's 4x6 km relay, helping Canada finish 10th out of 18 teams.
Beaudry, who just turned 24, will be back next season with the Canadian women's World Cup team after a disappointing season the previous year. She returned to the circuit in late December 2017, just in time to meet the Olympic qualifying criteria of two top-60 finishes. She placed 53rd in an individual race in Ruhpolding, Germany. Then in January, a month before the Olympics, she reeled off a 23rd-place result in the sprint in Oberhof, Germany, and ended up 51st in the pursuit. But the best was yet to come in Pyeongchang.
"I got my first top-30 when I finished 23rd and to go out at the biggest races there are at the Olympics as a last-minute call for my first race and get one of best results ever on the biggest stage makes it extra special," said Beaudry. "When you watch someone like Martin Fourcade, who is on the World Cup podium every day, and he goes into his first race at the Olympics and doesn't get a podium, you just see how much the Olympic pressure is. That was all I could ask for."
Beaudry walked into the stadium with the Canadian team for the opening ceremony and was there for the closing ceremony as well. Canada finished third with 11 gold medals and 29 medals overall, the most successful Winter Olympics ever.
Beaudry was in Prince George for the first 10 days of April and took advantage of the great spring snow conditions on the trails at Otway Nordic Centre. That's where it all began for her as a nine-year-old kid, watching her older brother Sylvain train and her dad Pierre coach with the Caledonia club. She brought out her skis one evening with the young biathletes in the club and that was their chance to ski with an Olympian.
The Canadian women's senior team will have a new head coach now that Roddy Ward has decided to step away from the job to devote more time to his family and his duties as high-performance director. Julia Ransom of Kelowna, who posted two top-10 World Cup finishes on 2017-18, announced her retirement so she can enter dental school. But most of the team remains intact, with Beaudry, Megan Tandy of Prince George, Rosanna Crawford of Canmore and Emma Lunder of Vernon named to the team last week, joined by Megan Bankes of Calgary and Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, Yukon. Bankes had a few World Cup starts last season and Moser was one of the top athletes on the IBU Cup circuit. Beaudry said she's not guaranteed she will start on the World Cup team, it will be based on the senior team trials.
On the men's side, World Cup veterans Nathan Smith of Calgary, Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., Christian and Scott Gow of Canmore, and Macx Davies of Canmore are also on the senior team, joined by Carsen Campbell of Bedeque, P.E.I. Matthias Ahrens will return as the men's team head coach.
Also approaching World Cup status is Emily Dickson of Burns Lake, who returned to the IBU Cup competition last year after dealing with health concerns related to celiac disease which limited her performances the previous season. Dickson, 20, was named to Biathlon Canada's newly-created under-24 national team along with Trevor Kiers, Adam Runnalls, Leo Grandbois and Jules Burnotte.
The World Cup tour is returning to North America next season with races at Canmore and Salt Lake City, Utah, scheduled for February 2019.
