Megan Tandy and Matt Neumann are going to need the race of their lives today in Canmore and the Biathlon Canada national team trials to have a shot at starting the season on the World Cup tour.
The Caledonia Nordic Ski Cub members both missed the podium Thursday in their respective sprint races. Tandy, 29, finished fourth in the women's 7.5-kilometre race, the same position she ended up in Tuesday's sprint.
Tandy, a resident of Germany who is trying to become the first Prince George athlete ever to compete in three Olympic competitions, had two misses on the range Thursday and crossed the finish one minute 16.2 seconds behind race winner Megan Banks of Calgary, who shot clean while completing the course in 22:03.5.
Rosanna Crawford (two misses) was 26 seconds behind Bankes and third-place Emma Lunder of Vernon (two misses) was third, 1:02.8 behind the winner. Caledonia club member Sarah Beaudry of Canmore (two misses) placed fifth, 2:16.6 off the winning pace. Caledonia's Emily Dickson of Burns Lake (two misses) was 11th (3:48.7 behind).
In the men's sprint, Nathan Smith of Calgary claimed his second win of the trials, finishing the 10 km course in 24:25.3, 26.1 seconds ahead of second-place Brendan Green and 1:09.3 in front of third-place Artem Prima of the Ukraine. Scott Gow was the third-fastest Canadian, 1:17 behind Smith.
Smith and Green hit all 10 targets, while Prima and Gow each had tow misses on the range.
Matthew Hudec of Edmonton was fifth overall (1:29.4 behind), Christian Gow of Canmore was seventh (the fifth-highest finishing Canadian) and Neumann was ninth overall (sixth among Canadians). Neumann missed two standing targets and one prone.
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, the final placings will reflect each athlete's best two results.
Smith, Green, Christian Gow and Hudec are the top four respectively in the men's standings, with the 28-year-old Neumann ranked fifth overall.
Scott Gow of Canmore is the only male biathlete already guaranteed a World Cup spot on the four-male Canadian team, which will start the season Nov. 24 in Oestersund, Sweden.
Crawford and Julia Ransom of Kelowna, who did not race Thursday, have locked up their senior team berths, leaving just two female positions spots available on the World Cup team.
Heading into today's modified relay race, the final event of the trials in Canmore, Lunder leads the women's standings, followed in respective order by Ransom, Bankes, Beaudry and Tandy, who is fifth overall. If Tandy does not make it into the final four, she would start the season on the IBU Cup circuit and would need exceptional finishes to return to the World Cup team and ultimately take a position on the Olympic team.
