On Friday, Prince George biathletes Megan Heinicke and Sarah Beaudry found out what's it's like to compete against each other in a World Cup race when they raced the sprint in Hochfilzen, Austria.
One day later, the two Caledonia Nordic Ski Club members were teammates in the women's 4 X 6 kilometre relay, helping Canada to an 11th-place finish in the 23-team event.
Heinicke, a 26-year-old World Cup veteran who has competed in two Olympics, took the lead leg and hit 17 of 20 targets, completing the course in 19:51. The 20-year-old Beaudry, in only the second race of her World Cup career, also had just three misses in her four shooting bouts. Beaudry completed the the third leg of the relay in 18:31, taking over from Rosanna Crawford of Canmore. Audrey Vaillancourt of Quebec City raced the anchor leg for Canada.
Germany (Luise Kummer, Franziska Hildebrand, Vanessa Hinz, Franziska Preuss) won gold in 1:11:40, followed by Belarus and the Czech Republic. Canada ended up 1:09 off the winning pace.
Heinicke placed 61st in Friday's sprint while Beaudry was 63rd. Both failed to qualify for the top-60 pursuit on Sunday.
Crawford, who was 34th in the sprint, just missed the medal podium in the 10 km pursuit, finishing fifth, six seconds behind bronze-medalist Anais Bescond of France. Kaisa Makarainen of Finland won in 30:44. Ekaterina Glazyrina of Russia claimed silver.
Canada placed sixth out of 24 in the men's 4 X 7.5 km relay Saturday. The team included Nathan Smith of Calgary, Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., Marc Andre Bedard of Saint-Croix, Que., and Scott Perras of Regina. Gold went to Russia (Maxim Tsvekov, Timofey Lapshin, Dmitry Malysko, Anton Shipulin), France won silver and Norway took bronze. Canada was 2:55 behind Russia.
Martin Fourcade of France won the men's 12.5 km pursuit Sunday in 32:53, followed by Simon Schepp of Germany and Jakov Fak of Slovenia. Green was 44th and Smith placed 49th.
The World Cup tour comes to Pokljuka Slovenia for races this weekend. The women's sprint is on Thursday and the men's sprint is on Friday. Pursuits are scheduled for Saturday and mass start races will follow on Sunday. Live webcasts of the races will be available on biathlonworld.com.
