Sarah Beaudry is back in the big leagues of biathlon.
The 24-year-old from Prince George is in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, preparing for BMW World Cup races later this week and it's all because she's been doing so well on the second-best biathlon circuit on the planet, the IBU Cup.
Biathlon Canada has named Beaudry to the World Cup team for the second trimester after she posted three top-eight results over the past two weeks at IBU Cup events in Ridnaun, Italy, and Idre, Sweden.
Beaudry, who ranks 16th in the overall IBU Cup standings, will join World Cup veterans Megan Tandy of Prince George and Rosanna Crawford of Canmore on the Canadian team. The races in Nove Mesto start today with the men's 10-kilometre sprint, followed by the women's 7.5 km sprint on Friday. Pursuit races are scheduled for Saturday, with mass start races on Sunday.
Canada will have four men in today's men's sprint - Scott Gow of Canmore will start fifth, followed in 36th position by his brother Christian, then Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., (54th) and Jules Burnotte of Sherbrooke, Que., (94th). Burnotte, 23, is taking the place of Nathan Smith of Calgary, Canada's most decorated male biathlete. Smith, 32, announced his retirement this week due to an energy-sapping health condition known as cytomegalovirus, which he first developed two years ago.
In 2012, Smith became the first Canadian male to make the World Cup podium when he won silver in a sprint race. He won gold in a pursuit that year and in 2016 combined with Green and the Gow brothers to win bronze, Canada's first-ever relay medal, at the world championships.
"We are such underdogs in this sport," Smith told the Rocky Mountain Outlook. "Even though I didn't accomplish every goal, especially in the last two years, it's still amazing to me that I had the privilege to stand on the world championships podium as an individual, and also as a team with the men's relay. I never dreamt in my wildest dreams that either of those would happen when I first began racing internationally and realized the level of the European countries."
Meanwhile, the IBU Cup tour resumed Wednesday in Obertilliach, Austria, where Megan Bankes of Calgary was the top Canadian in the women's 15 km individual race, posting a season-best 11th-place result. Bankes was 1:09.4 behind gold medalist Caroline Colombo of France, who finished in 42:11.6. Nadine Horchler of Germany was six-tenths of a second off the winning pace. Elisabeth Hoegberg of Sweden won bronze, 18.4 seconds behind.
Emily Dickson, a Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member from Burns Lake, was 44th, 4:43.7 behind Colombo. She missed three of 20 targets. Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, Yukon, was 69th and Darya Sepandj of Calgary was 91st.
In the men's 20 km individual event, Carsen Campbell of Bedeque, P.E.I., turned in his best finish of the season when he finished 10th. He hit 20 of 20 targets and was 3:02.1 off the winning pace.
Simon Fourcade of France won in 50:1.9, shooting clean in four rounds. Sivert Guttorm Bakken of Norway was 59 seconds behind in silver medal position and bronze medalist Sergey Bocharnikov of Belarus was 21.83 behind.
In other Canadian results, Aidan Millar of Canmore was 18th and Adam Runnalls of Calgary was 76th.
