Sarah Beaudry and her rifle-toting Canadian counterpart Carsen Campbell finished eighth out of 25 teams Thursday in the IBU Cup biathlon single-mixed relay race in Ridnaun, Italy.
Beaudry, a 24-year-old Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member from Prince George, had six misses in four bouts on the shooting range (0-2, 0-1, 0-1, 0-2). Campbell, from Bedeque, P.E.I., used just two spare rounds (0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 0-1).
Relay shooting bouts consist of five targets and competitors alternate between shooting while prone and while standing. Each biathlete carries three extra rounds that can be hand-loaded to make up for their misses. For each target that remains standing, a 150-metre penalty lap must be skied.
Beaudry and Campbell finished 1:32.6 behind the gold-medal pace of Russians Anastasiia Morozova and Sergey Koratsylev), who finished the 13.5-kilometre course in 39:03.2.
The German team, which included two-time Olympic/world champion Laura Dahlmeier and Roman Rees, were 2.1 seconds behind Russia to claim silver. Ukraine (Yuliia Zhiravok/Vitaliy Trush) won bronze, 15.3 seconds behind.
In the mixed relay, Emily Dickson of Burns Lake (0-1, 0-1), Emma Lunder of Vernon (0-0, 0-0), Aidan Millar of Canmore (0-2, 0-2) and Jules Brunotte of Sherbrooke, Que. (0-3, 0-2), posted a fifth-place result. The Canadians were 2:16.2 behind the gold medalists from Russia (Irina Kazakevich, Svetlana Mironova, Yuri Shopin, Anton Babikov), who won in 1:19:27.1. Sweden took silver and Norway captured bronze.
Meanwhile, in the BMW World Cup women's relay Thursday in Hochfilzen, Austria, Rosanna Crawford of Canmore was the top Canadian in 49th place. Crawford (2-0) crossed the finish 1:56.4 behind race winner Dorothea Wierer of Italy (0-1). Wierer completed the 7.5 km course in 21:04.9.
Silver medalist Kaisa Makarainen of Finland (0-1) was just six-tenths of a second behind, while Extarina Yurlova-Percht of Russia (0-0) was 24.4 seconds behind.
In other Canadian team results, Megan Bankes of Calgary was 73rd (1-2, 2:47.8), Megan Tandy of Prince George was 87th (2-3, 3:26.9), and Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, Yukon was 88th (2-2, 3:34.8) out of 98 starters. Only the top 60 in the sprint race qualify for the pursuit on Saturday.
Four Canadians are entered in Friday's 10 km men's sprint. Scott Gow of Canmore will start 14th, Christian Gow of Canmore will start 26th, Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T, is 65th in the start order and Nathan Smith of Canmore is 106th in the 110-competitor start order.
