Tag: Rose-Marie Cote

In Last Trip to World Junior Championships, Canada’s Davies Eighth in Individual

Canada’s Macx Davies (left) skiing deliberately en route to a career-best finish at World Junior Championships. Photo: Hugh Harden via Biathlon Canada.

It’s not that Macx Davies races so far at World Junior Championships were bad. No, 30^th and 33^rd in Obertilliach, Austria, were fine results for the Canadian biathlete.

But he wanted more.

“The race today was great,” he told FasterSkier after placing eighth in the 15 k individual race on Wednesday. “I started in a really focused state and kept that presence throughout the race. After my first two shootings I skied out for my third loop and somewhere out on course I realized that if I wanted to stay in the competition I had to hit my next ten shots. This wasn’t a frightening thought, simply a realization that if I want to do well in this race I needed to next ten shots. After that I knew that each shot needed to hit and made it happen.”

Davies had missed a shot on each of the first two stages, adding up to two minutes of penalty time. Even though he had skied fast in the previous two races, the individual format doesn’t allow many mistakes; more than in any other race, quick skiing can’t make up for errors on the range.

So as he cleaned the final two stages, Davies climbed towards the top. Starting in the middle of the field, he felt deceptively close to the win – although he eventually landed 1:37.3 behind Alexandr Loginov of Russia, the sprint champion, at the time he was right in the thick of things.

“I didn’t know how close I was to the front until my last loop when I skied by my coach and he yells ‘five seconds to the leader’ – at that point I am promptly brought out of my trance-like state to realize that I had shot 18/20 and was in with the leaders,” explained Davies. “I then forced myself to push incredibly hard on the last loop, almost throwing up and collapsing after the finish line.”

His last loop was the sixth-fastest of the day, but not enough to catch Ruslan Tkalenko of Ukraine, the early leader. Compared to the whole field once the race was over, Davies climbed from 28^th to 15^th to eighth before the final lap, and ended up just three seconds out of seventh place and 12 from the top five.

But despite not knowing how well he was doing, Davies had crafted a plan to make sure he was able to go all out on the final loop. The individual is the longest race format, but that didn’t concern him; he was more worried about the difficulty of the loop in Obertilliach, which is where Norwegian star Ole Einar Bjørndalen lives and trains for much of the year.

“Althought it may not look too hard on paper or even skiing easy, there is very little rest on the course which forces you to either make some or pace your race perfectly,” Davies said. “After having raced similar courses on the weekend I decided to change my skiing strategy, because it was an individual, the shooters race, and take the flats much easier and push the pace on the uphills. With the new pacing I kept a lower heart rate throughout the first four loops and was really able to pick up the pace on the last loop.”

The eighth-place finish continues a strong run by the Canadians as of late, after Sarah Beaudry placed fifth in the youth women’s individual the day before.

“The team is definitely getting excited for our improving results as well as the upcoming relays,” Davies said. “There has been a little bit of sickness with some of the athletes but otherwise I feel that the team is in a very healthy place, both physically and mentally.”

Menno Arendz of Prince Edward Island, brother to Canadian IPC ski and biathlon star Mark Arendz, had the best race of his first World Championships, placing 30^th with just two penalties. After leading the junior men in the opening races Christian Gow was undone by six penalties and finished 36^th, with the 16^th-fastest course time; Jasper Mackenzie placed 65^th.

For Davies, who is in his last year of eligibility as a junior, it was a good way to cap off a career of junior racing.

“My results don’t change my outlook on biathlon, but they do peak my interest and my desire to continue with the sport,” said the Biathlon Alberta Training Centre athlete. “For the next few weeks I am headed to the IBU cups in Martell, Italy and in Slovakia, after those I am staying for the Open European championships and also filling the gap in between the IBU and EOCH with a race in Altenberg, Germany.”

Like most of his teammates, Davies will finish the season at home with national championships for both biathlon and skiing. But first, one more shot at glory as a junior, when the four men team up for the relay on Friday. Who knows what they might accomplish.

“I feel like my training is much more validated having out together a race on the world stage!” Davies concluded.

* * *

Earlier Wednesday morning, Rose-Marie Côté seemed to be on track for her own top-ten, setting the tone in bib three in the women’s 12.5 k individual as she cleaned the first stage and missed one shot in the second. But as the rest of the field came through it was Laura Dahlmeier of Germany, the champion from the sprint, who rose to the top while Côté picked up two more penalties and landed 22^nd overall.

It was still Côté’s best result of the Championships, and a strong race in a heavilty stratified field: with fifth place already over three minutes behind Dahlmeier, the Canadian’s result 5:27.7 behind was much more impressive than it looked on paper.

Julia Ransom placed 34^th after struggling with seven penalties, and skied the 13^th-fastest course time of the women. Erin Yungblut was 48^th and Emma Lodge 50^th for the Canadians as well.

Results: men / women

January 30, 2013
Led By Ransom’s 15th, Five Canadian Women Improve in Youth and Junior Pursuits

Olga Podchufarova (RUS) after winning the junior women’s pursuit. Photo: Mario Danzl/Obertilliach 2013.

With Sean Doherty stealing the show in the youth pursuit, there was plenty for North America to be excited about in the third day of racing at World Youth and Junior Championships for biathlon in Obertilliach, Austria.

“It was great day for all of us here and biathlon fans,” Doherty’s coach Algis Shalna wrote in an e-mail to FasterSkier.

But with the gold medal heading to the United States, it was perhaps easy to forget that the youth men were actually the fourth group to race on Sunday, and there were many other strong North American performances before that. Canadians Stuart Harden, Julia Ransom, and Christian Gow each scored their second top-20 finish of the Championships, while American Casey Smith had a phenomenal pursuit, jumping up about 20 places based on strong shooting.

* The first race of the day was the youth women’s 7.5 k pursuit, where Uliana Kaisheva of Russia thoroughly crushed the field, expanding her lead from the sprint into a 1:15 victory over Galina Vishnevskaya of Kazakhstan despite four penalties.

This race generated the least buzz for the U.S. and Canada. Both teams had big hopes in this division, with U.S. biathlete Anna Kubek and Canadian Sarah Beaudry coming off strong seasons last year that included trips to the Youth Olympic Games.

After placing 34^th and 36^th in the sprint, the pair broke into the top 30 in the pursuit, with Kubek moving up to 25^th with just two penalties in the 20-shot race. Beaudry improved to 28^th with one more penalty.

“Sarah Beaudry is still young, but she has been to this last year and she also went to the Youth Olympics last year,” Canadian team leader and Biathlon Alberta Training Centre Head Coach Richard Boruta told FasterSkier. “She is still fighting with jet-lag and not feeling best on skis. The expectation is that she will possibly improve her ranks as the week will move on.”

* Next up were the junior women. While no Americans qualified for the 60-woman, 10 k pursuit, Canada was impressive in placing all four of its team members in the race. Furthermore, all four improved.

They were led by Julia Ransom, who started in 16^th position after the sprint. With a penalty early and then two clean stages, she moved into the top ten before slipping back to 15^th after two missed shots in the final standing stage.

Ransom was ultimately 3:09 behind the winner, Olga Podchufarova of Russia, who swept summer biathlon World Championships this past season and won by 17 seconds after sprint winner Laura Dahlmeier of Germany collapsed in the final stage, missing two shots to Podhufarova’s one. It was still a good day for Germany, though: Franziska Preuss earned bronze and Vanessa Hinz was fourth.

After earning silver in the youth pursuit last year, Ransom was up against some tougher competition this time around.

“The competition in Junior seems to be a little more competitive than Youth,” she wrote in an e-mail. “There are a lot of fantastic athletes looking to make it to IBU/World Cup and you can tell they are hungry! I was happy with my race both yesterday and today. I thought my shooting was solid in the sprint and may have lost a little focus in my pursuit (missed 2 on last bout). The sprint was a good wake up for my legs as I felt a lot better skiing today.”

Boruta, who coaches Ransom year-round in Canmore, said that her races so far were solid performances.

“Performance wise, I think Julia and Christian [Gow] as first-year juniors are right on target, they didn’t have any extraordinary races, but they did perform at the current level of their abilities and this is were they are in the world right now,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Emma Lodge and Rose-Marie Côté started 41^st and 43^rd, and improved a few places to 36^th and 38^th. But they couldn’t actually work as a team as they moved up on the trails.

“Rose and I both started in the wave start 4:00 min behind the leader, but didn’t spend much time together as I only hit 3 on the first prone when she cleaned so I spent much of the race playing catchup,” Lodge explained in an e-mail. “It wasn’t until the last lap when I left the penalty loop just ahead of her that I saw her again, so that was helpful having her chasing me down to the finish line!”

Lodge had five penalties after that frustrating first stage, while Côté limited herself to three. She had climbed up to 33^rd before taking two penalties in the final stage; both were over seven minutes behind Podchufarova, having lost an additional three minutes in the pursuit.

“Today’s race felt better than yesterday, with more spark in my skiing,” Lodge wrote. “I guess I needed a really hard effort to get my legs going! My prone was a bit off today which is frustrating as usually I can count on it, but I am happy with my 8 standing hits. We have two days off before the Individual on Wednesday and I’m feeling really prepared for the next races as I had a great training season and both my skiing and shooting improved. I’m excited for the next races, it’s awesome racing here under the sun and with so many competitive athletes around.”

Erin Yungblut, the only one of Canada’s junior women to come to Obertilliach as a first-timer on the international scene, improved from 59^th to 52^nd with four penalties.

Results: youth women / junior women

continued with men’s reporting here.

January 28, 2013
French Men, Ukrainian Women Post Big Victories in Youth Biathlon Relays

The start of the youth men's 3 x 7.5 k relay in Kontiolahti, Finland on Wednesday. Photo: Judy Geer.

On Wednesday, Kontiolahti, Finland, became a venue that was hospitable for biathlon for the first time in perhaps several weeks.

After the bitter cold of the World Cup races two weeks ago, a general lack of sunlight, and a persistent wind that has dogged even the best shots at World Youth and Junior Championships this week, today’s balmy sunshine was a welcome reprieve.

Geraghty-Moates in action. Photo: Judy Geer.

“Today was an amazing bluebird day and there was almost no wind,” U.S. racer Tara Geraghty-Moates told FasterSkier in an e-mail. “We couldn’t really have asked for better conditions. My favorite thing about Finland so far is the snow – unlike at home we have a ton of it here!”

No team capitalized more on the relative calm than the Ukrainian youth women, who over eight shooting stages, or a total of forty shots, missed just four and thanks to the use of spare rounds avoided the penalty loop completely. Yuliya Zhuravok, Yuliya Bryhynets, and Anastasiya Merkushyna raced to a 58-second win in the 3 x 6 k relay, besting runner-up Sweden by a landslide.

Bryhynets took the lead after her first shooting stage, and by the time she tagged off to anchor Merkushyna had amassed a lead of almost a minute – which actually intimidated her teammate.

“It was very difficult to go with such a big lead,” Merkushyna told the IBU news service after the race. “My legs were shaking; that is not normal. My hands were shaking and my head stopped working. I only thought ‘please shoot as normal as possible.’”

Good shooting was the order of the day for the women’s race: the Swedes used six spare rounds and the third-place Austrians five. The same could not be said of the youth men’s x 7.5 k relay, where only three of the 22 teams used fewer than ten spare rounds and most ended up in the penalty loop at least once.

While the French led the men’s relay from start to finish and ultimately won by 38 seconds, that outcome didn’t seem certain when the racers entered the range the final time. French anchor Aristide Begue, who won the individual competition on Monday, needed all three spare rounds to clean his targets, and almost all of the leaders missed with at least one bullet.

That was what saved Begue, who was able to leave the range with a 22-second lead and then extend it in the last loop of skiing to hang onto the win for teammates Clement Dumont and Florian Rivot.

The Swedish youth men’s team placed second and the Germans third; the most exciting finish of the day came when Kazakhstan, Italy, and Belarus sprinted to the line for fourth-place honors, with the Kazakhs beating out the Italians by just 0.1 seconds.

Top-Ten Finishes For Both Canadian Teams

Sarah Beaudry anchoring the Canadian women to eighth place. Photo: Judy Geer.

The Canadian women placed eighth today and the men ninth; coach Richard Boruta was satisfied with the results, but no more.

“I think it has been a relatively good day, probably reflecting our current position in this category in the world,” he told FasterSkier in an e-mail.

The women used only six spare rounds, all in prone. Rose-Marie Cote used two in the opening leg, and tagged off in 13^th, roughly a minute and a half behind the leadrs.

“Rose-Marie had a good shooting day, but her ski speed this week is not quite there,” Boruta said.

The performance of the day came from Julia Ransom, who is fresh off a top-ten finish in the individual race. Using a single spare round in prone and cleaning her standing stage, Ransom also excelled on the trails, turning in the third-fastest time for second-leg skiers and moving the team up to eighth. Sarah Beaudry held the team’s position despite hitting the penalty loop once.

“Julia actually had a really good race,” Boruta said. “She was third overall in her leg and she had a good shooting performance as well. And for Sarah, her ski speed is fine, but her shooting seems to suffer this winter a little bit.”

Albert Bouchard. Photo: Judy Geer.

In the youth men’s race, both Stuart Harden and Christian Gow turned in strong performances, and after two legs the Canadians were sitting in sixth place, just 30 seconds behind the winning French team – despite having already used eight spare rounds. After anchor skier Albert Bouchard was stuck skiing three penalty loops, the team dropped to ninth.

“It was a very interesting race for first two legs and both Stuart and Christian raced up to their potential,” Boruta said. “Christian has been skiing really well and he has a good chance to do very well in the sprint race.”

Gow placed 11^th in the opening individual race, and after that effort told FasterSkier that he was looking forward to races that placed more of an emphasis on skiing rather than shooting.

“Looking at the results though I am happiest at the potential I see moving foward into the upcoming races,” Gow explained. “I now know that I am very competitive with the top of the competition. I think that in the sprint, pursuit, and relay to come I will be able to really push on the skis, and I would consider my skiing to be my strength in biathlon.”

Gow mixes straight cross country races into his competition schedule in Canada, so he knew that he’d be ready in that regard.

“I have done more biathlon than cross-country races [this year], but not much more,” he said. “I find that doing the ski races helps to keep myself in check with my ski speed; they are the best test to see how fast I am going at any point in the season.”

Young Americans Gain Experience With Relay Finishes

Anna Kubek kicking things off for the U.S. Photo: Judy Geer.

If the Canadians were lukewarm about their relay results, then the Americans were luke-cold after placing 13^th in the women’s relay and 15^th in the men’s.

“I can’t say we are happy with their results, but we are happy seeing kids racing hard and giving their best,” U.S. coach Algis Shalna told FasterSkier.

The women’s team matched their result from the 2011 event, but second-leg skier Geraghty-Moates pointed out that the Americans had actually skied a better race, despite being comparatively younger than last year’s squad.

“There was a much larger field from last year, so I think our overall performance was much better,” she wrote. “Last year we were close to 13 minutes off the pace, this year we were only 6:53 off the pace. When Anna tagged me she was a minute back. I was able to hold her tenth place, but I lost some more time off of the leaders.”

In Shalna’s view, that’s not bad given that leadoff racer Anna Kubek and Geraghty-Moates are both relatively new to the sport, having started in 2010, and anchor Melissa Manning is at her first World Junior Championships.

Kubek coming in for the tag to Geraghty-Moates. Photo: Judy Geer.

“Two girls had good performances, especially Anna, who shot well – no penalty loops – and skied well, tagging to Tara in tenth place one minute back from the leader,” Shalna said. “Tara skied very strong but had a penalty in prone, but she is second year in biathlon and this is a very respectable performance. Her range times were slower than top biathletes in the world, but she just needs more practice time and experience racing.”

Manning also hit the penalty loop, and dropped the team to 13^th.

“Melissa, as a first year on the team, worked hard to keep us where we were,” Shalna said. “Is not easy to compete at this level the first time, with a lot of excitement and a fair amount of pressure.”

Geraghty-Moates was honest in her assessment of the team’s performance, but still positive.

Sean Doherty awaiting the handoff. Photo: Judy Geer.

“We are definitely off the European pace but we’ve made huge progress from last year,” she said. “For me it’s important to keep it all in perspective and just focus on making improvements one at a time.”

The youth men finished 15^th after a promising start by Sam Dougherty, who hovered around tenth place for most of his leg.

“The boys could have done a little better and placed around tenth to twelfth place, but few penalties did not favor them,” Shalna said. “The best race was for Sam who had good start, them cleaned his prone shooting and used only one extra round to clean the targets. It was solid performance for him skiing and shooting.”

Sean Doherty kept the momentum going and lost only one place over the course of his leg despite hitting the penalty loop twice; Nick Proell replicated Doherty’s shooting errors, and the team eventually slipped to 15^th.

“Sean skied well but struggled on both shooting staged and had one penalty on each,” Shalna said. “He was making time on skiing, but the extra time on the range to use spare rounds kept us from getting any closer [in the last two legs].”

Results: youth women’s relay / youth men’s relay

February 23, 2012
Russia Dominates in Biathlon World Junior Championship Youth Relays

The leadoff skiers in the youth men's relay await their start. All photos by Judy Geer.

After a World Junior Championships where it has already proven dominant in the medal counts, Russia sealed the deal by winning both the youth men’s and women’s relays in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic on Friday. And it wasn’t even close: both teams won by more than a minute, the men over Italy and the women over Ukraine.

Exhaustion at the finish of the youth men's relay.

Elena Badanina, the leadoff skier for the Russian women’s team, doesn’t see herself as becoming a star, despite having medaled in all eight World Junior Championship races she has started in her career. For a country as large and full of talent as Russia, things can change a lot from year to year.

“I know that this here were mere ‘children’s competitions’ and that I still have a long way to go and a lot of hard work to do before arriving at the top,” she told IBU News.

While her competitors might resent being called children, she has a point. With the World Cup currently in North America, the very fastest juniors are for the most part not contesting this year’s World Junior Championships.

And as Russian Maxim Tsvetkov, who won his third gold medal of the week today, pointed out, even medals at World Juniors don’t guarantee success.

“There were so many athletes who won medals at the Youth and Junior World Championships and then could not make it on the World Cup level,” he told IBU News. “I don’t want to be one of these athletes.”

Davies.

The Canadian youth men had the top performance of the day, finishing seventh in the 3 x 7.5 k relay. Leadoff skier Stuart Harden, who has raced to 18th and 23rd place finishes so far in Nove Mesto, used only a single spare round to clean two shooting stages, and tagged off in fifth place.

“I’m happy with my leg of the relay,” he told FasterSkier. “As a team we chose me to start because of my consistent shooting. I definitely achieved that today by using one spare round, and I managed to leave team Canada within 30 seconds of a place on the podium. My legs didn’t feel great on the skis, but being the last race of World Championships the whole team pushed as hard as we could for our respective legs.”

The Canadians missed just seven targets in six shooting stages, which represented the second-best shooting in the field, and skied only one penalty loop. But for Harden, Christian Gow, and Macx Davies, it wasn’t enough to meet their high expectations.

“Unfortunately we didn’t perform as well as we had hoped on the shooting range and that was reflected in the result,” Harden said. “We had hopes for a better result, but Christian and I will be youths at next year’s championships, and are looking forward to the relay as another great chance for a Canadian medal.”

The U.S. team also shot well; they missed nine shots over the course of the relay and avoided the penalty loop entirely, one of only six teams to do so. But they still ended up in 12th place, over four minutes off the podium.

“I thought that our shooting was very good,” leadoff skier Casey Smith said in an e-mail. “Shooting is something that can slip easily, but we held it together. If we had been skiing a little faster then I think that we could have done really well. This year’s relay was an improvement from last year, which I think we were all happy about. All in all I thought that it was a good race for us.”

Garaghty-Moates.

In the women’s race, the Canadians again bested their southern neighbors. The team of Rose-Marie Cote, Julia Ransom, and Sarah Beaudry finished eighth. Cote matched Harden’s performance, using a single spare round to tag off in fifth place.

“My race was really good,” Cote told FasterSkier. “I am proud of my performance. I had a fast skis and I only used one spare bullet, so I gave the second leg the tag in fifth place. Also, I was really happy to be the first leg of my team because I love mass starts. I am aggressive and have the speed to do well in mass starts, so I was really confident at the start line. In the double poling zone, I fell because I poled on my ski – but I stood up fast so I wasn’t really behind the leaders!”

Like the Canadian men, the women had high expectations, which weren’t quite matched in this Championships series. But the relay, while it didn’t produce a medal, seemed to satisfy the team.

“My team is happy with our eighth place because of the level of the competition,” Cote said. “My expectations were higher than what I achieved, but I really appreciate and learn from this experience. The best athletes know how to get back up, to learn and come back stronger.”

The American women struggled mightily, hitting the penalty loop more than any other team. As has been the case for most of the Championships so far, Carly Wynn and Tara Garaghty-Moates skied fast while shooting poorly – Wynn skied three penalty loops and Garaghty-Moates four. And also as usual, Silke Hynes shot well, using one spare round to clean each stage, but was unable to make up any ground on the trails.

Competition continues on Saturday with the junior men’s and women’s relays.

Full results: youth men / youth women

The leaders of the youth men's relay skirt the treeline in Nove Mesto.

February 4, 2011
World Junior Biathlon Wrap-Up: Canada gets 4th in relay

The final races of the World Junior/Youth Biathlon Championships in Torsby, Sweden concluded yesterday with the team relays.

Summary of relays:

–Russia won Youth Men and Junior Women, while Germany won Junior Men and Norway won Youth Women.

–Canada entered teams for all events. The U.S. did not field teams for the Junior Men’s and Junior Women’s relays.

–Best American finish: Canada’s Youth Women relay team of Rose-Marie Cote, Audrey Vaillancourt, and Julia Ransom were just one place off the podium, placing 4^th out of 17 teams.

Summary of Championships:

Rose-Marie Côté

–Canada’s Rose-Marie Cote started off the week with a bronze medal in the Youth Women sprint. Known for her marksmanship, Cote entered the Championships after cleaning the range for every race during trials, and continued to shoot clean in every race of the week except the pursuit, in which she picked up 3 penalties. She was 13^th in the sprint, 18^th in the pursuit, and 4^th in the team relay.

— Canadian Youth Women: The team of Cote, Vaillancourt, and Ransom took 4^th in the relay, and each had solid individual results as well. Vaillancourt placed 26^th in the pursuit, while Ransom had an 11^th in the individual race, 15^th in the sprint, and 23^rd in the pursuit.

–U.S. Biathlete Leif Nordgren started the week with an 11^th place in the individual race and then earned two top-tens with a 6^th in the sprint and a 5^th in the pursuit.

Leif Nordgren (USBA)

—-Other top-30 finishes all came from Canada: Scott Gow, 21^st (sprint), Christian Gow 23^rd (individual), Yolaine Oddou 23^rd (ind.), David Gregoire, 30^th (ind.)

Other top U.S. results: Casey Smith earned 32^nd in the sprint and Eathan Dreissigacher placed 36^th in the pursuit.

Monday’s Relay:

Junior Men

Germany led the whole race of this 4×7.5 km relay, and although France was close behind at times, they ended a distant 1:19.3 down to the Germany’s gold medal team of Tom Barth, Johannes Kuhn, Benedikt Doll, and Manuel Muller. Russia, 1:34.8 down to Germany, earned the bronze. In shooting, Germany was 0+12 , France was 0+7, and Russia was 2+9.

Canada’s team of David Gregoire, Scott Gow, Joel Pacas, and Matthew Neumann placed 12^th out of 18 teams, 7:27.4 back with 3 penalties and 16 spare rounds.

The U.S. did not field a team.

Youth Men

The Russian team of Alexandr Loginou, Ivan Pichuzhkin, and Aleksandr Pechenkin took the gold over France and Norway in this 3.7.5 km relay, shooting 0+15. They were just over a minute up on France (0+8) and 1:43 up on Norway (0+14).

Canada’s team of Edouard Cote, Aaron Gillmor, and Christian Gow were 4 minutes off the podium; with 0 penalties and 14 rounds, they finished 8^th out of 20 teams.

The U.S. team of Casey Smith, Raileigh Gossling, and Conrad Roberts took 10 penalties and 14 rounds to finish in 19^th.

Junior Women

Russia took gold in the 3x6km relay, while Norway, Germany, and France dueled for second place with a sprint to the finish. Norway (0+3) beat Germany (0+6) by .2 of a second to earn silver. France (0+5) was shut out of the podium by finishing just .7 of a second behind Germany. The Russian team of Larisa Kuznetsova, Svetlana Perminova, and Anastasia Kalina shot clean with three rounds.

The Canadian team of Yolaine Odou, Carly Shiell, and Tatiana Chesham placed 10^th out of 14 teams, with a time back of 7:01.0, zero penalties with five spare rounds.

The U.S. team did not start.

Youth Women

The Youth Women also raced a 3x 6km relay, and Norway’s team of Thekla Brun-lie, Marion Huber Ronning, and Anne-Tine Markset took the gold with zero penalties and four rounds. Russia was only 23.9 seconds down to Norway and 16 seconds ahead of bronze medalists Belarus (0+2), despite one penalty and a whopping twelve spare rounds.

Canada was close to the podium with the team of Rose-Marie Cote, Audrey Vaillancourt, and Julia Ransom. With no penalties and four spare rounds they finished fourth, one minute and three seconds from third place.

The U.S. team of Kelly Kjorlien, Afton Snyder, and Silke Hynes had 5 penalties with 13 spare rounds and finished in 16^th place.

Men’s Junior

Men’s Youth

Women’s Junior

Women’s Youth

February 3, 2010
Canada’s Rose-Marie Côté Wins Bronze Medal at Biathlon Youth WC’s

Rose-Marie Côté

Canada’s Rose-Marie Côté Wins Bronze Medal at Biathlon Youth and Junior World Championships in Sweden

TORSBY, Swe.— Rose-Marie Côté led the Canadian charge to the podium after winning a bronze medal in the youth women’s 10-kilometre individual start competition at the 2010 Youth and Junior Biathlon World Championships in Torsby, Sweden on Thursday.

Côté battled through snowy conditions in Sweden to enjoy a stellar day on the range where she shot clean to post a time of 35:22. The Lévis, Que. native has had an eye for the target over the last month. She shot clean in each of her three selection races for the World Juniors earlier this month.

Côté finished just off the leading pace set by Russia’s Olga Galich, who clocked-in at 33:35.7.

The individual competition, which is the most traditional event in the biathlon lineup, puts an emphasis on precise shooting. With no penalty loops like there is in other disciplines, athletes are given a one-minute penalty for every missed shot. The individual is the longest in skiing distance of all biathlon competitions and has four bouts of shooting – two standing and two prone.

Article excerpt by Chris Dornan for Cross Country Canada

January 28, 2010