In the individual biathlon event, there’s no place to hide on the shooting range.
For every missed target, one minute is added to that competitor’s time and if your aim is not true, a great race can suddenly crumble into a disaster.
That did not happen to Germany’s Denise Herrmann Monday on the course in Zhangjiakou, China, 180 kilometres northwest of Beijing.
Herrmann had her rifle sights zeroed in perfectly and missed just one of her 20 shots, and also had the ski speed she needed to reel in Olympic gold, completing the 15-kilometre course in 44 minutes 12.7 seconds.
Not far behind, in silver-medal position, was Anais Chevalier-Bouchet of France, who also shot 19-for-20 and ended up just 9.4 seconds behind Herrmann, while World Cup leader Marte Olsbu Roeisland of Norway won bronze with two missed targets, finishing 15.3 seconds behind Herrmann.
Megan Bankes of Calgary was the top Canadian, finishing 33rd out of 89 competitors. Bankes started 25th in the order and shot 18-for-20. Her two misses came on the second standing shooting bout, her last trip to the range before she headed for the finish line. Bankes finished the course in 48:47.2, 4:34.5 behind Herrmann.
Emma Lunder of Vernon placed 67th with seven misses. She timed in at 52:02.4, 7:49.7 off the gold-medal pace.
In the first Olympic race of her career, Emily Dickson placed 70th. The 24-year-old from Burns Lake had five missed targets and finished in 52:26.1, 8:13.4 behind the gold medalist. Dickson was relieved to get her first race under her belt and hopes to build off the experience to climb the standings in Friday’s sprint race.
“Pretty amazing, it was a really tough fight out there but, so I am told, to get the official Olympian title you have to complete a race and I was really happy to push myself out there, as challenging as it was,” said Dickson.
“I can say it now, I’m an Olympian and that feels so incredibly amazing, so I’m excited. I think now that the first one’s out of the way the nerves are off a little bit, so I’m really excited to have a couple days to recover from this big effort and start focusing on the sprint. That’s been my strongest race this season so I’m really looking forward to that one.”
Dickson placed 60th in the sprint Jan. 7 in Oberhof, Germany in her first World Cup start in nearly two years.
She says she feels the love from Canadians who couldn’t be there to cheer on the team in China.
“The amount of support I received in the last few weeks and in the last minutes up until the race started was incredible and I was thinking about that, for sure,” Dickson said. “It’s really helped calm me down when I start to get worked up and start wondering, do I deserve to be here. When you get those messages saying you deserve it and you’ve worked a long time to get here, that’s really helped calm me down.”
Sarah Beaudry of Prince George, 27, finished 80th. Beaudry missed five targets and was 9:42.3 behind Herrmann.
“It’s definitely disappointing,” said Beaudry. “I’ve had some good shooting in the other individuals this year and I just couldn’t pull it together today, so that’s disappointing.
“My skiing, I don’t think looks better on paper, but it felt a bit better in my body so hopefully that means better things for the sprint.”
The Canadian men – Scott and Christian Gow of Canmore, Jules Brunotte of Sherbrooke, Que, and Adam Runnalls of Calgary get their next chance to race on the Olympic course on Tuesday (12:45 a.m. PT start) in the 20-km individual event.
Beaudry combined with Lunder and the Gow brothers to finish 14th in Saturday’s mixed relay.
The women’s 7.5 km sprint is scheduled for Friday (1 a.m. PT) and the men’s 10 km sprint is on Saturday (1 a.m. PT), followed by the pursuits on Sunday.
