When she looks back on her World Cup biathlon career, Sarah Beaudry won’t recall her December 2021 tour of the race trails of Hochfilzen, Austria as one of the highlights.
Beaudry’s Canadian women’s teammates would probably agree, after posting their worst IBU World Cup tour results in several years this past weekend.
It started with Friday’s 7.5-kilomletre sprint race, in which Beaudry was the highest-finishing Canadian, placing 107th. The 27-year-old Prince George native, a veteran of 88 World Cup starts, missed four of her five targets in the prone shooting bout and ended up 4:43.2 behind race-winner Hanna Sola of Belarus, who shot clean and stopped the clock in 20:44.4.
Benita Peiffer of Vancouver was the only other Canadian who started the race. The 21-year-old World Cup rookie ended up 6:20.6 behind with five missed targets and placed 113th in a field of 114 starters.
Emma Lunder of Vernon and Megan Bankes of Calgary did not start the sprint, but represented Canada along with Beaudry and Peiffer in Saturday’s 4 X 6km women’s relay. But the shooting woes continued for Canada. Beaudry took the lead leg of the relay and missed two standing targets and tagged Peiffer with Canada trail the leaders by 68 seconds. Peiffer shot five-for-10 and was 3:25 off the lead when she tagged Bankes, who had four misses and was lapped by the frontrunners in the race. Lunder, the Canadian anchor, had not yet left the start gate when the race ended.
Canada finished 22nd in the 24-team relay.
“Bad skiing, bad shooting. Still smiling. On to the next one,” posted Beaudry, on her Instagram page.
A top-60 finish in the sprint was required to qualify for Sunday’s women’s 10 km pursuit and none of the Canadians made the cut. Marte Olsbu Roeisland of Norway won the pursuit in 30:04.1, using a last-lap pass to edge Sola by 4.1 seconds and Elvira Oeberg of Sweden by 23.3 seconds.
The Canadian men had a much better weekend by comparison. Three of them finished in the top-60 in the sprint – Christian Gow of Canmore was 38th (1:26.6, 1+0), Adam Runnalls of Calgary was 49th (+1:40.8, 1+1) and Scott Gow of Canmore was 51st (+1:42.3, 0+2). Jules Burnotte of Sherbrooke, Que., placed 97th. Johannes Kuehn of Germany won the sprint in 26:05.
Scott Gow was the top Canadian in Saturday’s 12.5km men’s pursuit. He had three penalties in 20 shots at the range and was 2:36.7 behind gold medalist Quintin Fillion Maillet of France, who shot 19-for-20 and finished in 33:52.
Christian Gow was 44th (+3:05, 0+1+0+2) and Runnalls was 46th (+3:23.2, 0-0-1-2).
Norway (Sturla Holm Laegreid, Tarjei Boe, Johannes Thingnes Boe, Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen) won Sunday’s men’s 4 X 7.5 km relay in 1:14:34.8. They combined for just five misses and crossed the line 21.2 seconds ahead of France and 47.3 seconds quicker than Russia.
Canada finished 12th, 3:36.3 behind, with 14 misses.
The World Cup tour resumes this week in Annecy-Le Grand Bornand, France. The women’s sprint is scheduled for Thursday and men race their sprint Friday.
