The start to Friday's Olympic biathlon 15-kilometre individual race in Sochi, Russia, was nightmarish for Megan Heinicke.
Five shots, three misses, and three minutes in penalties added to her time.
But rather than let that bother her, the 25-year-old from Prince George put that mini-disaster out of her mind and got through her next two rounds of shooting without a miss. Heinicke then nailed four of five targets while standing in her fourth and final round and skied to a 51st place finish in a field of 84.
Heinicke's time of 50 minutes 26.8 seconds was seven minutes off the gold-medal pace of Darya Domracheva of Belarus, who clocked 43:19.6. Selma Gasparin of Sweden won silver and Nadezhda Skardin of Belarus was the bronze medalist.
Megan Imrie of Falcon Lake, Man., was the top Canadian, finishing 30th in 48:32.7. Zina Kocher of Red Deer was 63rd (53:00.7) and Rosanna Crawford of Canmore, Alta., was 67th (53:29.8).
Unfortunately for the Canadian women, none of the four qualified for Monday's 12.5 km mass start race. The mass start lineup is made up of the top 15 in the World Cup standings as well as 15 others based on their results in the sprint, pursuit and individual races at the 2014 Olympics.
Nathan Smith of Calgary, Jean Philippe Le Guellec of Quebec, and Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., will represent Canada in Sunday's 15 km mass start event.
There's a chance Heinicke could be selected for the mixed relay on Wednesday.
She is scheduled to compete in the women's 4 X 6 km relay on Friday.
