Heinicke, Beaudry named to national team

Prince George biathletes Megan Heinicke and Sarah Beaudry will be back on the World Cup scene next season.

Heinicke, 25, is one of four Canadians named to the national A team by Biathlon Canada, while Beaudry, 21, has cracked the B team. Their contributions helped Canada post its most successful season on the international biathlon scene.

Now based in Germany, Heinicke nailed down four top-16 World Cup finishes in 2014-15, including a best-ever 11th in a sprint race in Ruholding, Germany. At a pursuit in Pokljuka, Slovenia, she moved up from 41st position to finish 14th while shooting 100 per cent on the range, her first perfect shooting results.

Heinicke, a two-time Olympian who helped the Canadian women to a best-ever eighth-place finish in the women's relay in 2014, plans to remain on the World Cup scene to try for a third Olympic team berth to compete in Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2018.

Beaudry competed internationally on the World Cup and IBU Cup circuits last season. In her first World Cup race, in Austria, she placed 63rd and was 11th in the team relay in Slovenia.

Her best IBU Cup finish came late in the season when she placed sixth in Canmore. Beaudry went on to win three gold medals at the Canadian championships in Hinton, Alta.

Nathan Smith of Calgary, Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T. and Rosanna Crawford of Canmore, Alta., were also named to the elite A squad. Smith made history at the world championships in Finland in March when he won a silver medal to become the first Canadian man to climb the World Cup podium. He then won World Cup gold at a race in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

Green set a Canadian record when he hit 50 straight World Cup targets this season and posted a career high with a fifth-place result.

Crawford posted several top-five finishes and had a career-best fourth-place result in Slovenia.

"Depth is critical to mounting an attack on the medals, and each athlete on this team has knocked on the door of the World Cup podium," said Chris Lindsay, Biathlon Canada's high-performance director. "This is now a veteran group of experienced athletes that knows if we are firing on all cylinders - medals are possible every time we put on the skis."

Joining Beaudry on the B squad are Christian Gow of Calgary; Scott Gow of Calgary; Emma Lunder of Canmore; Scott Perras of Regina; Julia Ransom of Kelowna; and Audrey Vaillancourt of Quebec City. They will compete in World Cup and IBU Cup events next season.

"This team of athletes is the deepest in the history of the Canadian biathlon program," said Lindsay, on the Biathlon Canada website.

"Each of these athletes have achieved success at various levels of their development, demonstrating the development system we have in place - graduating athletes out of their provinces and moving to the national training centre where they are centralized with the best biathletes in Canada is creating a culture of excellence that is creating more medal contenders in our country."