It might seem like spring has arrived in the city, with warmer weather, snowless fields, and green grass showing on the boulevards, but out at Otway Nordic Centre it’s still winter.
That’s good news for the 200 athletes coming to the city this week with skis and rifles in hand to compete in the Stride & Glide Sports Canadian Biathlon Championships. The event starts Saturday and runs to the following Thursday with four days of competition planned.
Among the list of competitors is two-time Olympian Sarah Beaudry of Prince George and her Olympic teammate Megan Bankes of Calgary, who teamed up with Emily Dickson of Burns Lake and Emma Lunder of Vernon to finish 10th in Beijing in the 20-team women’s relay.
“We’re excited to have Sarah back on home turf again,” said Heather Tandy, logistics chair of the biathlon nationals organizing committee. “We have a number of athletes who have just come back from world juniors in Soldier Hollow in the U.S., and the local athlete there, Moira Green, had some good results there.”
Beaudry and Green will represent their home Caledonia Nordic Ski Club, along with Mya Blackburn, Iona Cadell, Liam Connon, Artemis Douglas, Liam Simons, Liam Sinclair, Payton Sinclair, Aliah Turner and Cedar Wink.
The nationals lineup also includes World Cup veterans Aidan Millar of Canmore and Benita Peiffer of Whistler. Former Olympian Julia Ransom of Kelowna will also travel to Prince George with the Biathlon Canada delegation.
Great Britain is sending its national biathlon team to Prince George.
“Historically, it’s been run through their military and they’ve had very few people on the World Cup circuit and they’re trying to develop their program outside of the military, so they got a grant from the International Biathlon Union and that has sent them over here,” said Tandy.
Two of the British athletes – Ciara Mitchell and Alfie Sprake – will compete at Otway in the IBU classes. The other six won’t race but will be there for the week to gain exposure and they’ll will have a chance to work with Caledonia biathlon coach Ali Cadell.
After a training day Saturday, competition starts with the sprint events on Sunday, followed by the pursuits on Monday. Tuesday, March 15 is another training day and racing resumes with mass start (men, women, juniors) and individual (youth) events on Wednesday, March 16 and wraps up with single-mixed relays on Thursday, March 17.
For the sprints and pursuits, the younger (non IBU) athletes race in the morning starting at 10 a.m., and the older (IBU) athletes race in the afternoon, starting at 1 p.m. For the mass state/individual and single-mixed relays, the older ones have the morning start times and the younger ones race in the afternoon.
“We’ve got 202 athletes coming in from all across the country,” said Tandy. “We didn’t have nationals last year so this is the first time in a couple years and I think a lot of people are really ready to do this. We’ve got some top-calibre athletes coming in and we’re going to see some fantastic skiing.”
This past weekend the host Caledonia club hosted the three-day BC Teck Cross-Country Ski Championships, which drew 342 athletes (close to 100 more than anticipated) to the Otway trails for the first major nordic competition the city has had since the pandemic began two years ago.
“In a way it was nice we had those numbers because that was more than what we’ll be having for the biathlon,” said Kevin Pettersen, Caledonia’s director of competitions. “It allowed us to see how everything worked with higher numbers and then the venue is set up already before we welcome the rest of the country.”
The budget for the biathlon nationals is about $135,000. Pettersen said the club secured a $33,000 grant from the BC Fairs and Special Events fund and also tapped in Sport BC funding through the city and Tourism PG while also leveraging joint funding from the cross-country championships.
Prince George was selected to host the 2018 biathlon nationals but the event had to be moved to Canmore due to a lack of snow that year, which spurred the club to install snowmaking equipment. Those snow guns were put into action a few weeks ago when the city went through a cold snap, which left a huge stockpile of snow that’s now covering the biathlon trails.
“We’ve got good snow out there, conditions are fast, and we’re expecting that to continue,” said Tandy.
Spectators are welcome to attend free of charge and the south hill overlooking the shooting range will be a popular spot to watch. Proof of COVID vaccinations is not required for the spectator areas but everyone in the field of play will have to show that they have received their shots.
Dickson, 24, raced over the weekend on the IBU Cup circuit this week in Lenzerheide, Switzerland and was the top Canadian in all her races. She placed 36th in Sunday’s 12-km mass start, was 17th in the 7.5 km super sprint on Saturday and 11th in Thursday’s sprint.
