The punishment is severe for inaccurate shooting in a biathlon sprint.
Each miss on the range means a 150-metre penalty loop and the Canadian women were forced to ski that part of the course several times during the BMW IBU World Cup 7.5-kilometre sprint Friday in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.
Unfortunately for the four-member Canadian team, all those missed targets put a top-60 finish needed to qualify for Saturday’s pursuit out of reach.
Sarah Beaudry of Prince George finished 65th after two misses while prone and had one missed standing target. The 26-year-old veteran finished 2:10.5 behind race winner Tiril Eckhoff of Norway, who finished the nighttime race in 18:11.1. Denise Hermann of Germany won silver (+6.1 seconds) and Dorothea Wierer of Italy captured bronze (+10.5). All three medalists shot clean.
Emma Lunder of Vernon had an especially tough day on the range with four prone misses and one standing target left up. She placed 92nd out of 103 starters, 3:17.9 off the pace. Nadia Moser of Whitehorse, Yukon was right behind Lunder in 93rd place (2+2, +3:19.4), while Megan Bankes of Calgary was 100th overall (0+5, +3:38.3).
Canada will have two athletes in the men’s 12.5 km pursuit Saturday. Christian Gow of Canmore qualified after he placed 31st in the men’s sprint on Thursday, while his older brother Scott also made the top-60 cut, placing 54th.
Quentin Fillon Maillet of France won the sprint in 22:07.2 and will start the pursuit with an 11.3-second head start over Tarjei Boe of Norway, who was second in the sprint. Lukas Hoffer of Italy won bronze.
Christian Gow will leave the pursuit start gate 1:26.1 behind Fillon Maillet, while Scott Gow starts 1:57. behind the leader. Adam Runnalls of Calgary, who was 64th in the sprint, and Trever Kiers of Sprucedale, Ont., who placed 67th, did not qualify for the pursuit.
After two weeks in Nove Mesto, racing will wrap up Sunday with the mixed relay and single mixed relay events. The World Cup season concludes next week in Oestersund, Sweden.
