In her IBU senior biathlon world championships debut, Emily Dickson of Burns Lake helped Canada to a 14th-place finish in the 4 X 6 kilometre mixed team relay Thursday in Antholz-Anterselva, Italy.
She teamed up with Emma Lunder of Vernon and the Gow brothers, Scott and Christian, of Canmore, Alta., and they finished 14th out of 27 teams - 2:57.5 off the gold-medal pace set by Norway.
In front of a crowd of 20,000 gathered at the Italian resort and millions more tuned into the global webcast, Dickson took the lead leg of the relay for Canada and had just two misses in her first three shooting bouts. In her final trip to the range she went through three reloads and was forced to complete a penalty lap when she left one target standing.
Dickson tagged Lunder, who needed just one spare round to nail all 20 targets. Scott Gow went next in the order and needed two reloads in his fourth bout at the range and Christian took over and finished the race with three reloads in his final bout.
Norway (Marte Olsbu Roeisland, Tiril Eckhoff, Tarjei Boe, Johannes Thingnes Boe) stopped the clock in 1:02:27.7. Italy (Lisa Vertozzi, Dorothea Wierer, Lukas Hoffer, Dominiik Windisch) won silver, 15.6 seconds behind the Norwegians. Czech Republic (Eva Kristejn Pusharcikova, Ondrej Moravek, Michal Krcmar) took bronze, 30.8 seconds behind the leaders.
Dickson is entered in Friday's women's 7.5 km sprint and will start 90th out of 102 entrants. Megan Bankes of Calgary is 13th in the start order, Lunder is 51st and Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, Yukon will start 69th.
The men's 10km sprint is set for Saturday. The top-60 finishers in each sprint qualify for Sunday's pursuits. Individual races, a single mixed relay, women's and men's relays and a mass start race are on the world championship schedule for next week in Antholz.
All races will be streamed live on www.eurovisionsports.tv/ibu. Friday's sprint starts at 4:45 a.m. Friday
