For three laps, Brittany Hudac was on the fast track to a gold medal Saturday at the World Para Nordic Skiing Championships, leading the rest of the field in the women’s 10-km standing biathlon race.
Until the Ukrainian express caught up to her.
Liudmyla Liashenko was driving that train and by the time it rolled in to the finish line at Otway Nordic Centre, she and her compatriots, World Cup leader Oleksandra Konokova and Yulia Batenkova-Bauman had all passed Hudac in the race for medal positions.
None of the three Ukrainians were as accurate on the shooting range as Hudac, who hit 19 of 20 targets, but their ski speed proved the difference, dropping the 25-year-old from Prince Albert, Sask., into fourth place in a time of 39:25.8.
Liashenko set the pace with an adjusted time of 37:22.4 after three missed targets, followed by silver medalist Konokova (38:32.0, three misses) and Batenkova-Bauman (38:09.3, two misses). Emily Young of Kelowna finished seventh (41:07.8, two misses).
In the men’s standing 12.5 km race, Mark Arendz of Hartsville, P.E.I., also led for three laps and ended up winning bronze in 38:39.0, sharing the podium with gold medalist Benjamin Daviet of France (36:24.4) and silver medalist Nils-Erik Ulset of Norway. Arendz had just one miss and finished 4.5 seconds behind Ulset. Daviet, who won the 12.5 km biathlon event at the 2018 Paralympics in Pyeongchang, shot clean in four rounds.
Kyle Barber of Sudbury, Ont., in his world championships debut, finished 10th (49:20.5, three misses).
In the visually-impaired women’s 10 km biathlon, world points leader Clara Klug and her guide Martin Hartl of Germany cruised to victory. They stopped the clock in 39:48.8 with two misses on the range. Oksana Shyshkova and guide Vitaliy Kazakov of Ukraine won silver (40:29.2, one miss) and 16-year-old Andriana Kapustei and guide Nazar Stefurak were the bronze medalists (46:19.3, two misses).
In the visually-impaired men’s 12.5 km race, Yuri Holub and guide Dzmitry Budzilovich captured gold (37:07, one miss), the first medal of the championships for Belarus. Vitaliy Yuk’yanenko and guide Borys Babar of Ukraine skied to silver (39:36.3, no misses), followed by bronze medalists Anthony Chalencon and guide Simon Valverde of France (39:54.5, four misses).
Racing resumes Sunday with the cross-country mid-distance races, starting at 10 a.m. The last race of the day starts at 12:55 p.m.
