Sarah Beaudry won't be coming home to compete in the Canada Winter Games and that's unfortunate for Prince George.
She would certainly be one of the medal favourites in biathlon.
But her decision to forego the Games and instead compete for Canada at the world junior championships in Slovenia that same week in February boosts our country's hopes of an international medal haul.
Last year Beaudry won world junior bronze in the pursuit and this past weekend in Canmore she proved no other junior racer in Canada can keep up to her. The 20-year-old product of the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club started the weekend Friday with a gold-medal performance in the 7.5-kilometre sprint at the world junior/youth team trials, and followed that up with a win Saturday the the NorAm sprint.
Beaudry, who lives in Canmore, missed just one of 10 targets Friday, finishing 54 seconds ahead of second-place Kelsey Dickinson of Maine. Beaudry shot clean on Saturday and covered the 7.5 km NorAm course in 22:50, 1:48.8 ahead of second-place Maddie Phaneuf of the U.S. biathlon team.
Prince George racers from the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club were prominent in the Canmore races.
In Friday's youth sprint, Caledonia club member Emily Dickson was third, 1:01 behind the 30:21 gold-medal pace of Bryn Robertson of Calgary. Dickson had misses on the range, while Robertson missed four. Claire Lapointe of Prince George was 10th, 2:55 behind Robertson. Dickson captured the win Saturday's NorAm race, stopping the clock in 24:37.4, while Lapointe was 12th, 3:44 behind her Caledonia clubmate.
Caledonia member Matt Neumann also climbed the NorAm podium, finishing third in Saturday's men's 10km sprint behind national team members Macx Davies and Christian Gow. Neumann missed two targets and was 1:38 behind Davies, who won gold in 26:16.
Neumann, 26, who also makes his home in Canmore, was fourth in Sunday's 15km mass start race, 37.1 seconds off the 40:52 winning pace of U.S. team member Sean Doherty.
After posting the eighth-best junior/youth time in the selection race Friday, Arthur Roots of Caledonia finished fifth in the junior men's 10km sprint and was eighth in the 15km mass start event.
In other Caledonia results, in the youth men's mass start 10km race Sunday, Bobby Kreitz was 30th, Logan Sherba was 36th and Colton MacDougall placed 41st. Kreitz was 21st in the youth sprint Saturday, Sherba was 24th and MacDougall was 38th.
