Five bullets, five nailed targets.
That was a bit of cool comfort for Emily Dickson as she blew by the penalty loop area and headed up the big hill out of the stadium area one last time at Otway Nordic Centre on Sunday. With only a couple of kilometres of trail separating her from gold and a Western Canadian biathlon title in the youth women's pursuit, there was no stopping Dickson.
By the time the 16-year-old from Prince George crossed the finish line, 29 minutes 40.1 seconds after she started her 7.5 km race, nobody else was in sight.
"I definitely feel my shooting could have been better today, but I'm happy with how my skiing went," said Dickson. "I thought I would be really tired from [Saturday' sprint race], it's a tough course with lots of hills so you feel it in your legs a lot, but I felt pretty good out there. I cleaned my last bout and it just gives you extra energy and I just skied it out. It's a good feeling "
Dickson started the pursuit five seconds after Danielle Vrielink of Calgary, Saturday's sprint winner, and passed her just after the second stop on the range. Dickson, a member of the host Caledonia Nordic Ski Club, had three misses in two prone round, hit three of five in the first standing shooting round and shot clean in her last standing round. Vrielink had seven misses in total, finishing 1:29 behind Dickson, who leaves in two weeks for the world junior/youth team trials in Prince Edward Island.
Not long after Dickson finished, 13-year-old India McIsaac of Calgary claimed her second gold medal of the weekend in 32:59, edging Claire Lapointe of Prince George for senior girls gold. McIsaac avoided penalty loops for half the 7.5 km race, going 10-for-10 in the two prone rounds and was 4-for-10 in her standing bouts.
"I was really nervous because I wasn't sure if I could do it with everyone behind me and I know they're all the fast skiers but it just came together today," said McIsaac, who was skiing up an age class. "This is one of my favourite courses now. It is very hilly and I like a challenging course."
Lapointe, 15, was 2:07 off the winning pace.
"That was probably one of the toughest races I've ever done, just the insane amount of uphills," said Lapointe. "But there were no issues with the shooting , there was no wind and the sun was perfect. The cold was brutal, just like [Saturday] but you just have to power through it."
The youth men's 10 km race was an all-Canmore battle between sprint winner Aidan Millar and Matt Strum. Strum cleaned his last five targets to take the lead away from Millar and arrived at the finish in 32:01, 15 seconds of his Biathlon Alberta teammate.
"I got quite a bit of lead off that last bout of shooting," said the 18-year-old Strum. "[Millar] had to do the loop so I managed to get ahead of him and kept the lead. It was a fun good challenging race and it was nice to be on these trails. They're amazing trails, they rival Canmore's. It's a good prelim for Canada Games."
Ben Churchill of Calgary swept both races in the senior boys category, winning the 7.5 km pursuit in 26:54. William Poffenroth and Menno Arendz, both of Canmore, earned pursuit gold in their respective junior men and men's classes. Poffenroth covered the 12.5 km course in 41:16, while Arendz went the same distance in 40:36.
Sunday morning's start was delayed a full hour while race officials waited for the temperature to raise above -20 and it just barely got there. Several athletes wore tape on their faces to prevent frostbite.
The Caledonia club's Biathlon Bears younger age group athletes got their first taste of a big race over the weekend. Having the chance to race with older athletes, some of whom will be representing Canada in world championships, was well worth the discomfort of being out in the cold for an extended time.
"They've all improved and they were all super happy," said Caledonia head coach Andrew Casey. "It's cold and all the race organizers did a fantastic job and made a good call in delaying it. It's too dangerous to have a race when it's this cold, that can potentially damage their lungs. I've had lots of positive feedback from everybody and the volunteers took so much pride in putting this event on and it's gone off without a hitch."
