This weekend in Otepaa, Estonia, Prince George biathletes Moira Green and Isla Cadell will be competing against their age-group peers at the junior/youth world championships.
The 28-country event starts Friday with the mixed relays.
Green knows the drill already, having competed at the past two world championships as a youth athlete.
Last year, Green raced at the event in Kazakhstan and posted two top-20 solo finishes and a fifth-place result in the relay. She ended up in the top-30 twice in her first youth world championships in 2022 in Soldier Hollow, Utah.
Green, 20, has been living in Canmore the past two years training at the Biathlon Alberta Training Centre and has been in Europe most of the season racing IBU Junior Cup and European championship events.
On Feb. 1, she made the jump to the IBU Cup circuit and in Arber, Germany finished 22nd out of 77 skiers in the sprint race.
Cadell, 15, made four-female, four-male youth national team based on her performance at Biathlon Canada's January Selection Trials.
She finished second and eighth at BC Cup biathlon races held in her hometown at Otway Nordic Centre Feb. 3-4 and Cadell currently ranks fourth in the U-16 girls BC Cup aggregate standings.
Cadell has been training with her mom, Ali, head coach of the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club biathlon team in Prince George, as well as former Olympian Tuppy Hoehn, who has also worked with Green.
“They’re both really positive forces on the team, they just bring that joy to training,” said Hoehn. “They’re happy to be out here, always thinking about what they can do be a better athlete. (Moira) is in that next wave of national team that we’re going to see.”
Hoehn was 15 when she started racing biathlon in her Vanderhoof hometown and went on to compete in two junior world championships. She raced in Slovakia when she was 18 and in 1996 was part of the junior field in Switzerland when she was 19. Since then, three other Caledonia club skiers – Megan Tandy, Sarah Beaudry and Emily Dickson – have represented Canada at the youth/junior world championships on the way to the World Cup stage.
Hoehn competed under her maiden name, Michelle Collard, in 36 World Cup events until she retired in 1999. In March 1999 she placed 16th in the sprint, her best-ever solo result. At the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, she finished 38th in the sprint and 17th in the team relay.
