In one of her final tune-up races before she heads off to her seventh consecutive youth/junior world biathlon championships, Emily Dickson of Burns Lake finished 51st Thursday in the IBU Cup women's 12.5-kilometre short individual race in Arber, Germany.
The 21-year-old Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member had seven misses in four shooting bouts and finished six minutes 57.6 seconds behind race winner Yuliia Zhuravok of Ukraine, who cleaned all her targets. Swedes Chardene Sloof (+1:01.9) and Elisabeth Hoegberg (1:38.2) took silver and bronze.
Nadia Moser of Whitehorse was the top Canadian, finishing 41st, 5:46.7 off the pace.
There was heartache for Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., in the men's 15 km short individual event - his first IBU Cup race this season since being dropped from the World Cup team. Green finished just off the medal podium in fourth place, 2:09.3 behind gold medalist Alexander Povarnitsyn of Russia. Lucas Fratzcher of Germany (+1:11.7) and Aristde Begne of France (+1:49.2) also made the podium.
Carsen Campbell of Bedeque, P.E.I., finished 37th, Matthew Strum of Canmore was 43rd and Trevor Kiers of Canmore placed 45th.
Dickson will join the Canadian junior team on Monday in Osrblie, Slovakia, for a week of competition in the world championships which start Thursday and run through Feb. 3.
Meanwhile, in the BMW World Cup sprint Thursday in Ruhpolding, Germany, Sarah Beaudry continued to struggle on the shooting range. The 24-year-old from Prince George missed three of five prone targets and went 3-for-5 while standing and finished 96th out of 103 starters. Beaudry was 3:40.3 behind the gold-medal pace of Anastsiia Kuzmina of Slovenia, who completed the 7.5 km course in 19:15.1. Lisa Vitozzi of Italy won silver (+11.5), and Hanna Oeberg of Sweden was the bronze medalist (+29.1).
Rosanna Crawford of Canmore was the top Canadian in 27th (+1:32.3). In other Canadian results, Megan Bankes of Calgary was 68th (+2:32.8) and Emma Lunder of Vernon was 88th (+3:17.9).
In the men's 10 km sprint, the Boe brothers of Norway finished 1-2. The younger Boe, Johannes Thingnes, won gold in 22:56.3, 7.9 seconds ahead of his brother Tarjei. Benedikt Doll of Germany claimed bronze (+10.5).
In Canadian results, Scott Gow of Canmore was 42nd (+1:36.0), Christian Gow of Canmore was 56th (+1:52.7), Jules Burnotte of Sherbrooke, Que., was 67th and Aidan Millar of Canmore was 102nd.
The men race today in the 4x7.5 km relay, with the women's 4x6 km relay on Saturday. Mass start races are on tap for Sunday.
