By a country kilometre, 2014-15 was Megan Heinicke's best season on the World Cup biathlon trails.
Four top-16 finishes in a grueling five-month season which wrapped two weekends ago provided all the evidence Heinicke needed. She's getting better with age.
From the day she helped Canada place eighth in the Olympic relay in Sochi in 2014 with rapid-fire perfection on the range, Heinicke set her sights on being among the top 16 in the world. It took more than a year for her to accomplish that, but the wait was worth it.
"It was a big step forward - my physical fitness and my ski speed wasn't significantly faster this season, the change in results came in with better shooting and a much higher level of consistency than in past years," said the 25-year-old Prince George native, from her home in Germany.
"It was a matter of finding the right balance between being aggressive and motivated and feeling the pressure, but finding the right way to go out there and do your job without getting caught up in the mental games. Our sport has a huge psychological factor and it's been kind of infuriating and fascinating all at once the last few years, going from quite a good shooter as a junior and then seeing the shooting percentages fall, despite good training."
Heinicke stopped analyzing every aspect of her races and spent less time worrying about how to tweak her performances and instead focused on being relaxed, especially when it came time to shoot. That approach produced her best-ever results.
In her first World Cup stop of the season in Ostersund, Sweden, on Dec. 4, Heinicke placed 12th in the individual race, with just one miss in 20 shots. That came as a huge surprise because the week before she'd posted disastrous results in an IBU Cup sprint race, missing five of 10 targets. She had her best race the following month in Ruhpolding, Germany, shooting nine-for-10 in the sprint race to place a career-best 11th, just 1.4 seconds out of the top 10.
"I trained in Ruhpolding so it kind of felt like home turf by the time the World Cup rolled around," she said. "I placed 11th, but the coolest thing for me was I also had the 11th-ranked ski time. That was my strongest ski performance of the season."
Plagued by colds and a lung infection which forced her to miss the mixed relay at the world championships in February in Finland, Heinicke stayed at home for the first four days of the event. When she did race, her ski times were noticeably slower, but her shooting did not let her down and she shot 90 per cent or better in five straight races.
One of the highlights of her season came in the pursuit in Pokljuka, Slovenia, on Dec. 20. She started 41st and went a perfect 20-for-20 on the range to finish 14th. It was the first time Heinicke shot 100 per cent in a World Cup race.
"That's a fantastic feeling because in a pursuit every time you leave the range you look at the penalty loop and if three girls are in there you know you've just moved up three positions," she said.
After being bedridden for all the races the previous week in Nove Mesto, Slovakia, Heinicke found perfection on the range again Feb. 12 in Oslo, Norway, and went on to finish 12th in the individual race.
"That should have been a top-six result, shooting 20-for-20, but I was skiing slow coming off the first cold and I placed 12th," she said.
While the pursuit is her favourite biathlon event, Heinicke has always excelled in the individual race, the oldest event in the sport. It's the longest race (15 kilometres for women) and it includes five laps and four shooting bouts in order of prone, standing, prone, standing. Biathletes are assessed one-minute penalties for each miss on the range, rather than skiing penalty loops, as in all other events. Heinicke's combined results in individual races placed her 10th overall in the world standings.
"I've always loved the distance - the longer the race goes on, the better I usually get relative to my competitors," she said. "In the individual, when you're on that range, nothing matters except for those little black dots. It's not how fast you shoot, not who's in front of you and not if you're going to qualify for the pursuit. It's all about those targets because if you miss you get a one-minute penalty and that's a lot. It's way more painful than a penalty loop that takes 22 to 26 seconds.
"An individual race can be so surprising because you're out there fighting with girls on the ski trail and you have no idea if they've only had one miss or if they're already out of the race. That's why I love the pursuit. I love knowing exactly what my position is throughout the race. The lane you shoot on is your rank and that's really motivating and just fun."
The races in Ruhpolding marked the World Cup debut of 21-year-old Sarah Beaudry of Prince George, who, like Heinicke, is a product of the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club.
"That was so exciting - this entire season has been really cool seeing what kind of athletes are coming out of not just B.C., but Prince George," Heinicke said. ""For years, I've been the only B.C. athlete on the World Cup tour and this year we had Sarah and Julia Ransom (from Vernon) and then we also had the Canada Games results from (Caledonia club member) Emily Dickson."
Nathan Smith of Calgary made history in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, when he won the pursuit, the first Canadian male to ever win a World Cup biathlon event. Smith, 29, also won sprint silver at the world championships. Rosanna Crawford of Canmore had four top-10 results, including a fourth-place finish in the sprint in Slovenia and Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., also cracked the top 10.
"Inside the team it builds us up more and more, and it gives us some media exposure, but as far as we've heard yet it doesn't guarantee us more funding," said Heinicke. "We have to hope the positive effect trickles down, but there are no guarantees. It's incredibly motivating to see people who you are 150 per cent certain are not doping. You know they're clean and this is just hard work paying off and it shows you can make it to the top in our sport."
Despite being sick for the Czech races and missing the Russian races because of funding shortfalls that left her without a visa, Heinicke ended up 37th overall in the world standings.
"The results from this season have given me a ton of motivation and the belief that I can see myself in the top 10," she said. "The thing about seeing Rosanna, Brendan and Nathan breaking into the top 10 was they're all my age or older."
Heinicke moved to Germany four years ago after she married her B.C. provincial team coach, Ilmar Heinicke. They have a four-year-old son, Predo. Living in Europe, close to all of the World Cup sites takes away the headache of long plane trips and jetlag faced by her Canadian teammates, but also puts additional pressure on Heinicke to be one of the best in the world.
As a non-resident living away from the national team training centre in Canmore, Heinicke has to post at least one top-eight result at world championships or the Olympics to qualify for national team funding. As a result of her top-eight Olympic relay result in 2014, she has one more year guaranteed as a carded athlete. She won't know until next year's world championships whether she can extend that funding for another two years.
Heinicke plans to remain in Germany for a few more years but her desire to compete for Canada in her third Olympics in 2018 in South Korea could hinge on whether she retains her carded status for another two years.
