Emily Dickson picked up where she left off at the Canada Winter Games -- standing on the high spot of the medal podium.
After a tough slog through slushy snow conditions on a warm Thursday afternoon at the national biathlon championships in Hinton, Alta., the 17-year-old Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member emerged at the head of the class in the junior women's pursuit.
Dickson, the Canada Games pursuit champion, shot clean in her first stop at the range and that allowed her to gain a lead she held the rest of the way in the 7.5-kilometre race, winning in 31:53.09.
"I'm not going to lie, the course was really brutal, it's 11 degrees and the snow is incredibly slow, definitely some of the toughest races I've done this season, skiing-wise," said Dickson, who also won Wednesday's sprint race.
"Luckily I've had solid shooting the last two days and that's really helped me out. To not have to do the penalty loops so many times has been very helpful."
Dickson came into the range on the first lap with Megan Banks of Alberta and Nadia Moser of the Yukon, and with the wind gusting, Dickson took her time shooting and that worked in her favour when she shot clean. Banks missed three shots and Moser missed once. Dickson went on to hit all 10 prone targets in the race and went 6-for-10 while standing.
"There was some wild shooting today and I had a decent day, I hit 80 per cent and I'm happy with that," said Dickson.
Sarah Beaudry of Prince George earned her second gold medal of the week in Hinton. She had just three misses in 20 shots while winning the 10km junior women's pursuit in 36:27.2. Beaudry, 21, stopped the clock 2:26 ahead of second -place Leilani Tam Von Berg of Ontario. Beaudry also won the sprint on Wednesday.
Matt Neumann of Prince George just missed a medal in the men's pursuit. Neumann was 3.92 seconds behind bronze medalist Vincent Blais of Quebec and 1:27.8 off the gold-medal pace of Macx Davies of Canmore. Marc-Andre Bedard of Quebec won silver.
"It was kind if a bummer being fourth and out of the podium," said Neuman, 25, who was also fourth in the sprint race. "Today I was more focused on having a perfect race than having result and the skiing was about as good as I could have done today. I started the last (2.5km) lap 36 seconds back of third place and brought it down to 3.9 seconds. I just went for it the whole loop."
Neumann, who competed last month in IBU Cup races in Canmore, shot 16-for-20 Thursday but that wasn't enough to top Davies, a World Cup veteran who had just two misses. Blais set the standard with just one missed target in the race.
In other Prince George results, Claire Lapointe won silver in the senior girls pursuit, finishing 18.5 seconds behind gold medalist Kirsten Chiccoine of Alberta. Lapointe, 16, a Canada Games relay champion, also won silver in Wednesday's sprint.
Arthur Roots of Caledonia Nordics was sixth in the junior men's pursuit and placed sixth in the sprint. In the senior boys pursuit, Bobby Kreitz was fifth, Logan Sherba placed eighth, Ryan Elden of Quesnel was 11th and Mark Hartley was 19th. In the youth men's pursuit, Colton MacDougall placed 24th.
Chris Elden of Quesnel won silver in the master men's 50-59 pursuit.
Racing resumes Saturday with a mass start/individual race and wraps up Sunday with the team relays. More than half the B.C. team are Prince George biathletes from the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club.
