Wilkie and Young on the podium at Para Nordic World Cup

photo: Nordiq Canada

CANMORE, Alta. – Natalie Wilkie of Salmon Arm, B.C. and Emily Young of North Vancouver took silver and bronze on Thursday in the women’s standing biathlon at the Para Nordic World Cup competition. 

It was a fourth medal this week for Wilkie and the first for Young. Canada has collected 13 medals overall in four races at Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park.

Ekaterina Rumyantseva of Russia won the women’s 12.5 kilometre race in 40 minutes and 59.0 seconds. The 20-year-old Wilkie followed in 41:15.5 and Young timed 42:13.5 after two earlier fourth-place finishes. All three medallists only missed one of their 20 shots.

“This is my first biathlon race in a long time, so I was really nervous coming into it,” said Wilkie, a triple medallist at the 2018 Paralympics. “I have needed to work a lot on shooting consistently and hitting as many targets as I could while skiing fast. I’m super pumped with the result today.”

It was a fifth career World Cup medal for Young.

“It is refreshing to be on the podium,’’ said Young. ‘’We had a great race for Canada yet again in our category. We have such a great women’s team. We push each other to be faster and we are really happy for each other regardless of if we finish on or off the podium.”

Brittany Hudak of Saskatoon actually posted the fastest ski time but missed three shots and posted a final time of 42:18.7. Each miss in the shooting range adds a minute to the final time.

Mark Arendz of Hartsville, PEI, the leader after the first two splits, was fourth in the men’s 12.5 kilometre biathlon just seven seconds off the podium.

Competition resumes Saturday.  

Full results can be found HERE.

With files from Nordiq Canada