After the pomp and circumstance were over Sunday afternoon, Emily Dickson was speechless.
Moments before, the 17-year-old biathlete from Prince George had received a bronze medal she won for Team B.C. in the junior women's 12.5-kilometre individual race at the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
The medal was a special one.
Dickson grew up in Burns Lake but now calls Prince George home. She's a Caledonia Nordic Ski Club athlete who trains at Otway Nordic Centre, site of the biathlon and cross-county skiing events at the Games.
"I was happy I could snag it (the medal). It was a really, really cool experience today to have my whole family and have so many family and friends here -supporters out there who wouldn't normally make it to my races.
"I don't know how to put it into words, how awesome it is. I had quite the cheerleading squad out there today."
The women's 12.5 km individual race featured five skiing laps interspersed with four rounds of shooting. For every target they miss, one minute is added to the racer's time.
Racers started individually in 30-second intervals.
Dickson, who started 20th, posted a time of 47 minutes 42 seconds to finish third, and made 14 of her 20 shots on the range as temperatures that hovered just below zero Celsius under sunny skies.
"The wax (on my skis) was perfect, it was awesome. The course was a little sketchy in sections with the amount of racers out on course, it's not very moist. It was falling apart a little bit out there and I was a little bit worried about wipeouts, and there were wipe outs but I kept it together."
Dickson's time was 2:42 behind gold medallist Leilani Tam Von Burg, 19, of Ontario, who posted a time of 45 minutes and made 17 of 20 shots. Team Yukon's Nadia Moser, 17, won the silver medal, clocking 46:55 and was successful on 16 of 20 targets.
Tam Von Burg started ninth, but made up for it by shooting two clean rounds on the range. She missed only one shot in the next prone position and two in the final standing position.
"My shooting started off pretty good, but kind of got nervous at the end," said Tam Von Burg, a full-time athlete from Ottawa who's now based in Canmore at the National Training Centre.
"I definitely had high expectations going in - at least I put pressure on myself and there was quite a bite of pressure. I'm happy I lived up to it and I could keep it all together."
Her skis too held up.
"They were awesome, the course was getting pretty soft, it was pretty hard skiing, the course is so much fun. But I'm very happy with it (the gold medal)."
It was the first time competing at the Canada Games for Moser, a 17-year-old from Whitehorse.
"I think I had a really good race, I was getting tired at the end," she said. I thought, 'I could do it.'"
Dickson, a student athlete at Pacific Sport Northern B.C., knows she couldn't have had the success she had without the support of her family, friends and coaches.
"Biathlon is an individual sport but really at the same time it's not," she said. "It takes a lot of people to get us where were are now, especially at this level.
To have them there watching me get my medal is awesome."
Team B.C.'s Claire Lapointe of Prince George, finished 11th overall, clocking 52:55, making 14 of 20 targets.
"My skis were amazing today, the wax techs did a great job on them," said the 16-year-old. "The snow was pretty choppy and I shot 70 per cent on the range which wasn't my best. It was amazing though and such a great day."
Up next for the women is the 7.5km sprint Tuesday at 10 a.m.
