Biathlon Yukon reaches top ten at championships

Biathlon Yukon broke into the top ten twice on the opening day of the 2010 Canadian National Biathlon Championships being held this week in Canmore, Alta.

Biathlon Yukon broke into the top ten twice on the opening day of the 2010 Canadian National Biathlon Championships being held this week in Canmore, Alta.

The first race on Wednesday of the week long event was the Sprint.

As the name suggests this is a fast race which sees the biathletes ski three separate loops totaling 10-kilometre for men’s to 6-km for senior boys/girls.

Biathletes complete two separate bouts of shooting.

The first round of shooting is prone and the second is standing.

Each time an athlete shoots, they have five bullets to hit five targets, if they miss any targets they will be required to ski an extra 150-metre penalty loop.

This means an athlete could potentially add 1.5-km to their total race distance.

To say today’s line up of athletes at the 2010 Canadian National Biathlon Championships was impressive would be an understatement.

Our Yukon Biathletes were not only skiing with the country’s best, they were also rubbing shoulders with the entire Canadian Biathlon Olympic team.

This was a great opportunity for our young Yukon biathletes to witness where their commitment and training could take them.

Yukon’s 18-year-old Ryan Burlingame came in a solid ninth in the 7.5-km youth men’s sprint.

Burlingame is attending Augustana University in Alberta and training with the Augustana Biathlon Team and is competing for his home territory at the nationals.

Burlingame skied a fantastic race today but felt his shooting was off with four misses.

Even with adding 600 meters to his race, he was only seconds behind the leaders.

This is only the first of four events and Burlingame is just getting warmed up.

Fifteen-year-old Erin Oliver-Beebe was 10th in the six-km senior girls’ sprint, less then three seconds out of seventh place and well within reach of the rest of the top pack.

Erin missed her first two shots, stopped and adjusted her rifle sights and proceeded to only miss one other shot for the remainder of her race for a total of three misses adding 450 metres to her total race distance.

Evelynn Kitchen and Jennifer Curtis skied great races in the six-km senior girls sprint finishing 23rd and 24th respectively.

Both young women skied well in tough, slushy conditions and are looking forward to Thursday’s individual race as they start in the morning when the ski trails will hopefully be more snow than slush.

Aryn Clarke, was scheduled to race in the six-km youth women’s sprint event but was side-lined with an injury from earlier in the season and had to be content with supporting her team mates.

This was difficult for Clarke not to be competing but her team mates really appreciated her being there for them.

“The team did great for such tough warm conditions and they can only look forward to more successes as they become tuned to the course and the soft snow,” said Judy Hartling,  Biathlon Yukon head coach.

Day two

Oliver-Beebe jumped up into Canada’s top five of the senior girls biathletes on the second day of competition in Canmore.

Thursday was the Individual Competition where biathletes ski five loops with a total distance of 20 km for mens’ and 7.5 km for senior girls and boys, and shoot four times with a one minute time penalty added for each missed shot.

The combination of focused shooting and powerful skiing paid off for Oliver-Beebe as she reached her goal this year for Biathlon Nationals to crack the top five.

Out of 20 shots, Erin missed only three targets as she skied a consistent three-minute kilometre placing her easily beside the best senior girl biathletes in Canada.

Burlingame came in 12th in the individual youth men’s race. Burlingame skied a great race against a very competitive field.

Kitchen also skied a solid race and had some good shooting bouts which boosted her standing up several notches to 16th place in the senior girls 7.5-km individual competition.

Curtis also moved up several spots in the senior girls 7.5-km individual competition to finish 18th. 

“It is a tough race, because if you ski too hard, your heart rate is too high to shoot well,” Curtis said. “With a one minute penalty for every miss you can really mess up a good race with a couple of missed targets.

“It’s really hard to find the balance of when to push and when to focus on bringing down your heart rate.”

Saturday is the pursuit competition where the biathletes leave the starting gate according to their place from the sprint competition. This is a race with four bouts of shooting.

Submitted by Mary-Jane Oliver.