Long before she got to the Olympics and became Canada's next great medal hopeful in biathlon, Megan Tandy reached a crossroads.
One fork marked a return to the normal life as a high school student in Prince George, going out with friends and making plans for graduation and university.
The other path was a bolder-strewn obstacle course. It required her to double her biathlon training workload and become a full-time athlete, leave her Grade 12 classmates at D.P. Todd secondary school, and take up correspondence courses that gave her the flexibility to devote her life to a sport the average Canadian cares about only once every four years.
It wasn't easy, but the rewards did come to her four years later at Whistler Olympic Park.
Tandy's first Olympics went far beyond expectations, highlighted by her 36th place result in the pursuit, an event she had to qualify for by placing in the top-50 in the sprint. She was the only Canadian female who made the cut and it was her shooting that gave her the edge. Tandy shot 10-for-10 in the sprint, and missed just one of 20 shots at the range in the pursuit. In four events, she was the top Canadian female.
"I'd never hit 10-for-10 in a significant race before and certainly with the pressure of the Olympics it's not reasonable to think I could do a race better than I ever have before and that was perfect timing to have the first perfect shoot," Tandy said.
"I knew going in I was good at handling pressure, and I had nothing to lose. I was the youngest one on the team, nobody had expectations, so there was nothing to do but have fun, take in the experience and give everything I had. It was wonderful that those races came together the way they did."
Tandy's body was well-rested before the Games, but her aerobic capacity did take a hit. Having developed a case of whooping cough in December, she was forced to remain in Squamish the month before the Olympics while the rest of the team went to Europe for World Cup races. That might have hurt her ski times and her World Cup standing, but as she showed in her home Olympics, her shooting certainly didn't suffer.
"I couldn't ski because I was coughing so much and I had to take it easy so I dry-fired (without bullets) like crazy and maybe that was a mixed blessing because I had more time at home and was a little more relaxed," Tandy said.
"I completely underestimated the value and energy of racing at home. Having trained in Squamish this last year I could not have felt more like it was my site, my trails, my shooting range, my backyard and my home. I felt like I knew half the volunteers."
Olympic dream is born
The Olympics weren't even on the radar when Tandy started out as a 11-year-old in the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club program coached by Fiona Coy and Jeremy Campbell. She had plenty of jackrabbits to chase with the likes of the Neumann brothers, Matt and Aaron, Carmen Hansford, Sylvain Beaudry and Michael Duck setting the pace in practice at Otway Nordic Centre. The team was dominant on the provincial scene and the competitive club racing environment taught her to ski and shoot. Tandy also developed a knack for mentally breaking down her races into segments and using the power of positive thinking to focus on what made her go fast. It was a tactic she learned in Prince George from Campbell and Coy, and it kept Tandy climbing the ladder.
"We've known her since she was young and watched her progress and in the early stages she wouldn't be the one we would pick to go that far, but gradually she did get there and it's pretty gratifying," said Coy. "Some people are born with that internal focus and the ability to analyze things and use that to their advantage. She's been a high-achiever in all aspects of her life."
Tandy's career objectives changed not long after she joined the B.C. provincial team when it set up shop at Otway in 2006. After one season of working with high-performance coach Knut Tore Berland, she was hooked.
"He was the one who said, 'You have to think big. You can go to the Olympics, you can be there and be on the national team if you tell me you want to try it,'" Tandy said. "He wasn't a guy who handed things over, but if you were ready to work for something he would do anything he could to make it happen. That was the first time I really thought maybe I can think that big."
Tandy trained at home with the high-performance team for the 2007-08 season as a part-time UNBC student, where she first started working with Ilmar Heinicke, her current coach (and now her husband), who took over the B.C. team from Tore Berland.
World-class breakthrough
After three years in the B.C. program, Tandy saw her efforts pay off late that season when she nailed three top-15 finishes at the 2008 world junior championships in Ruhpolding, Germany, and that year went to her first senior world championships.
"I saw the level of the top people and watched them shoot and I competed with them, even though I wasn't able to be as competitive as I am now," she said. "I was watching world champions and Olympic medalists, the best of the best, and they're just people. For me that was an eyeopener."
That summer she made the medal podium as a third-place finisher at the summer world roller ski biathlon championships in France, setting the stage for a double-gold medal win at the event the following year in Germany.
She moved to Canmore in the summer of 2008 to train with the national team and struggled while trying to keep up with the older athletes. Although she worked part-time in a restaurant, money was a bit of an issue and she was forced to pick and choose what trips she could take and which events she could enter. Funding from private donors like Carole Walkinshaw of North Vancouver, who spearheaded the First For Gold program in 2006, paid for some of Tandy's trips. But she realized she had to go after other sponsors to help pay the bills, and they did come through for her. She now has 8,000 kilometres on the brand-new Subaru hatchback supplied to her on a two-year lease from Fifth and Carney Auto Sales in Prince George.
"If you want to do high-performance sport in Canada and be successful, then the business part is part of your job," she said. "You need to be willing to talk to people to negotiate sponsors and find the things you can give back. This isn't Germany or France, and I'm not employed by the military.
"Carole's funding came at a critical stage and made an incredible difference. I was in a position where I had the potential but I couldn't really sell myself because I hadn't done anything yet, and you can't really do anything unless somebody invests in you. She made opportunities happen for me and believed it right from the start. She was one of the first people who said to me, 'You will be at the 2010 Olympics.'"
The First For Gold program has provided Tandy money, optical exams, medical and nutritional advice, and dental work for a chipped tooth, not to mention a healthy dose of inspiration.
"We're going to stick with her if she chooses to continue on to Sochi," said Walkinshaw. "In my mind, she has done so well with where she's placed in the world now, that in another four years she could truly be a podium contender, and I don't see any reason why she wouldn't," said Walkinshaw.
"I talked to a lot of members of the fund and what was most rewarding for was we were part of a young person's dream coming true, and that's not something you can give to someone if you don't participate. It's an amazing feeling that's worth everything you've done or given."
Building for 2014
Tandy ended up 61st out of 134 this season on the World Cup tour and Campbell, her former club coach, predicts there's no end in sight for how far she will climb in the international rankings as she builds her levels of endurance, strength and mental toughness.
"She's roughly 17 seconds slower per kilometre than the top skier but that's OK because she can make that up," Campbell said. "She's racing against people that have five or 10 more years of training and experience. The key now is to keep Megan happy and keep her in the sport by supporting her to 2014, and even 2018. She's not going to reach her genetic bloom until she's 30-plus.
"Our worst fear is that now the Olympics are over they will slash sport funding. If Canada is serious about keeping high-level athletes and having them do well on the world stage, we have to support them because it is a full-time job training at the World Cup level."
Funding uncertainty
Tandy made the decision last season to forego her Sport Canada funding and leave the rest of the national team in Canmore to live in Squamish with Heinicke where they trained with B.C. team. Biathlon B.C. is still waiting on how much provincial funding it will receive, and with Heinicke's future with team still uncertain, Tandy still doesn't know where the couple will be based this season or in the four years leading up to the Sochi Olympics.
"He wants to keep working with the B.C. program and I'd like to keep training with them," said Tandy. "I think there are a lot of people hoping it goes through but there are no guarantees. If I choose to stay in B.C., which I prefer, I will give up my Sport Canada funding because they choose not to card athletes not based at the training centre and I'm not alone in wishing the policy was different."
With her Sport Canada lifeline cut, Tandy lived in Squamish on the profits of a discreetly-nude calendar the Canadian women's biathlon team produced as a fundraiser.
"I gave up $18,000 and my ability to pay rent and groceries all year, which is huge, and the reason I was able to do was our calendar proceeds," she said. "It allowed me the freedom to train in B.C. this year with zero regrets."
