Arthur Roots and Sarah Beaudry can't predict the future, and looking ahead four years from now is too distant for them to be thinking about where they will rank at that time among the province's top biathletes.
While both 16-year-old Caledonia Nordic Ski Club members know there's a chance they could represent B.C. as hometown biathletes at the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George, they've got a more imminent goal in mind.
Both are in good position to make Team B.C. for the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax.
Beaudry finished second at the first Winter Games qualifier two weekends ago at Sovereign Lakes near Vernon, while Roots was second in the boys race behind 19-year-old Caledonia biathlete Aaron Neumann, who now lives in Canmore.
Each province can send four males and four females to the Games in Halifax. The final placings for the B.C. team will be determined Dec. 11-12 at final two CWG qualifiers -- the Nor-Am sprint and pursuit races at Canmore Nordic Centre. The team will be picked based on the top two results from the three qualifying races.
The Games are open to biathletes born between 1990 and 1993. Beaudry and Roots, who were born in 1994, received special permission from Biathlon Canada to ski up an age class, which puts them in the unique position of being eligible for two Canada Winter Games.
"It would be a pretty big achievement for me to make it," Roots said. "I'm only 16 and I'd be racing people who would be as old as 20. There's always the possibility (he could compete in the 2015 Games)."
"I think it would be really neat to race at home, with everybody who helped me get there, and have home-course advantage," said Beaudry. "I'd say I definitely have a good chance of going to the Canada Winter Games in Halifax."
Roots, a Grade 11 student at D.P. Todd secondary school, finished ninth in the pursuit at the national championships last season. He knows he's got his work cut out for him in Canmore trying to top Jasper Mackenzie of Kelowna, as he did in the individual race at Sovereign Lakes.
"That was the second-longest race I'd ever done and I just hunkered down and went for it," said Roots. "Jasper is a faster skier than me and he's the guy I'm competing with most. In the individual race, shooting counts a lot more because for every miss you have a minute penalty. I shot better than him in that race and it counted a lot more than it will in the next two races, where if you miss you have to do a penalty loop, which is only about 20 seconds.
"I just have to get in some hard skiing between now and then and some more time carrying the rifle. In the race in Vernon, by the end of the first loop I'd forgotten it was there."
Robbie Martin of Prince George, 19, is also in the mix for the B.C team after finishing fourth at Sovereign.
Beaudry placed second in the individual race to 17-year-old Julia Ransom of Kelowna. Allie Dickson, a 19-year-old UNBC student from Burns Lake, was fourth.
"I was really pleased because the individual is one of the hardest races for me because my shooting isn't the strongest," said Beaudry. "Now that that's over I feel good going into the other two races.
"I've got my new rifle and I've been shooting it a lot this year and I definitely feel my prone shooting is a lot more consistent."
Beaudry, a three-time medalist at last year's cross-country nationals, qualified for the Canadian youth national biathlon team but didn't have enough time to make concessions for the lost time in school a run at the world youth championships in Sweden would have cost her. This year she has worked it out ahead of time with her Grade 11 teachers at Duchess Park secondary that if she qualifies for the 2011 world event in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, she will go there.
Regional coach Pierre Beaudry has been training the Caledonia biathletes since May and has them practicing Saturday mornings and Wednesday afternoons at Otway Nordic Centre. The biathlon range has no power and the short daylight hours required Beaudry to bring in a portable battery-powered lighting system to allow shooting practices after school on Wednesday.
