Canadian biathletes Emma Lunder of Vernon and Christian Gow of Canmore flirted with a medal Sunday in the BWM IBU World Cup biathlon single mixed relay, the final event of the weekend in Oberhof, Germany.
After seven round of shooting, Gow was standing in the range at the same time as the leaders were knocking down their targets but Gow had a pair of misses which forced him to reload and dropped out of medal contention.
Gow avoided penalty loops but could not make up the lost time and he and Lunder finished sixth, their best finish in the event since last year’s fourth-place result in Hochfilzen, Austria. The Canadians used just four spares the entire race and finished 1:17.6 behind the gold medalists from France.
France (Julia Simon and Emilien Jacquelin) needed just three spares and Jacquelin locked up the victory shooting 10-for-10 in his final two segments of the relay. Sweden (Hanna Oeberg and Sebastien Samuelsson) won silver (0-5, +38.7) while the favoured Norwegians (Tiril Eckhoff and Jonannes Thingnes Boe, who had three penalties (3+8, +43.9) claimed bronze.
In the mixed team relay, Russia (Uliana Kaisheva, Svetlana Mironova, Alexander Loginov, Eduard Latypov) topped the medal podium. They finished their gold-medal run in 1:08:21.7, just seven-tenths of a second ahead of Norway. France took the bronze medal.
Canada (Nadia Mooser of Whitehorse, Megan Bankes of Calgary, Adam Runnalls of Calgary, Scott Gow of Canmore) finished 15th out of 23 teams. They were 3:38 off the winning pace.
The World Cup tour resumes Wednesday in Oberhof with the men’s sprint. Sarah Beaudry of Prince George, who qualified for the pursuit Saturday, will likely line up Thursday for the women’s sprint. Men’s and women’s relays and mass start events are also on the Oberhof schedule this week.
