Megan Tandy was hoping for medals and a chance to get back to racing for Canada on the World Cup biathlon circuit.
That return to glory for the 29-year-old two-time Olympian from Prince George will have to wait. Tandy’s near-perfect shooting and three top-11 finishes last weekend at IBU Cup races in Lenzerheide, Switzerland were not the qualifying ticket required to move Tandy back to racing with the best in the world.
But she came awful close.
Tandy placed ninth Sunday in the women’s 10-kilometre pursuit, finishing 63 seconds off the winning pace (31:02.9) set by Uliana Kaisheva of Russia. Tandy missed two targets in her second standing bout, her only misses in three races. She posted an 11th-place result in Saturday’s sprint and helped Canada to an eighth-place finish Friday in the mixed relay. In that race, Tandy took the lead leg and had Canada in second place when she made the tag.
In her Facebook post Tandy wrote: “I moved up from 11th to ninth place with shooting 0-0-0-2 in today's pursuit. The flower ceremony was so close before those two misses, haha... but as we know biathlon is never boring. I am happy to be in the top 10!
“Unfortunately my three good results here were not enough to earn me a spot on our World Cup team as I had hoped. That means I need to rest up and get ready to rock at IBU Cup 3 in Obertilliach, Austria next week.”
Tandy’s Caledonia Nordic Ski clubmate Sarah Beaudry of Prince George also made the cut for the pursuit, placing 43rd in the sprint. Beaudry, 23, gained seven positions in the pursuit to finish 36th. She missed four of 20 targets in the pursuit.
In the men’s 12.5 km pursuit Sunday, Carsen Campbell of Bedeque, P.E.I., was the top Canadian in 33rd place. Macx Davies of Canmore was 46th and Matthew Hudec of Edmonton was 57th. Antonin Guigonnat of France won gold in 24:54.3.
