Emily Dickson was back on familiar turf Saturday racing the biathlon trails at Otway Nordic Centre.
She took advantage of a break in her IBU Cup schedule to come back from Europe for Christmas and race in the senior women’s class at the Biathlon Canada Junior/Youth World Championship trials on the course she dominated nearly 10 years ago at the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
After five weeks of high-intensity training and international racing on the IBU Cup tour, just one step below World Cup, the chance to return to her northern B.C. roots was too good to pass up for the 26-year-old Burns Lake native.
Saturday’s sprint race started out well for Dickson and she cleaned her five prone targets but during her standing bout on the range her rifle bolt jammed and she inadvertently ejected two rounds, which cost her valuable time.
Morgan Quinn of Sovereign Lake Nordic Club in Vernon took advantage of Dickson’s misfortune and cruised in for the win, completing the 7.5 km course in 23:38.5, eight-tenths of a second ahead of Dickson (23:39.7). Saskatchewan’s Janice Grundahl of Qu’Appelle Valley Nordic Ski Club took bronze (24:30.6).
Dickson tried turning her rifle upside-down and gave it a shake but with two live rounds falling to the snow she had to hand-load two bullets and the damage was done.
“So far this season, my prone has been the one I’m not as confident in, I’ve had some troubles so that felt really good to hit 5-for-5, and in my bolt jammed a bit, which sometimes happens when it’s colder,” Dickson said. ‘It wasn’t a complete surprise but it was still a bit of blender and I lost a lot of time in my second shooting. I was happy I was able to hit my two I hand-loaded, so that was positive. Not my best performance.”
Dickson was in Europe racing World Cups three years ago when the Caledonia Nordic Ski club hosted the national biathlon championships and she hadn’t raced at Otway since the 2015 Canada Games.
“It felt really nice to be back here,” she said. “It’s such a fun course and such a good venue, they’ve done so much work on it, it’s always been a good venue.
“I didn’t have a lot of expectations for feeling good out there today and was pleasantly surprised, my body felt pretty good. I had a lot of fun racing the course, it’s beautiful.”
Dickson posted a career-best 12th-place result in the IBU Cup individual event Dec. 4 in Geilo, Norway, where she shot 20-for-20. That stands as the highlight of her season so far, with the European Open championships Jan. 29-Feb. 2 in Martell, Italy next on her hit list.
“I’ve had a few solid performances I’m really proud of but there’s a lot of work to do with consistency and confidence on the range has been a big piece of it,” she said. “At the end of the tour my confidence really dropped and I have some bugs to work out in the shooting range, but I’ve a little time before I leave for Italy (Jan. 19).”
The national team has a one-week training camp in Obertilliach, Austria before the European championships and one athlete from that competition will be moved up to the world championships Feb. 19-23 in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, and will likely race the final World Cup trimester that follows.
Dickson was on the 2022 Olympic team in Beijing and hoes to be racing for Canada again in the five-ring circus in 2026 in Torino, Italy.
“It’ll sting if I don’t get to race that much this year but at the same time the goal is next year (and the Olympics),” she said. “I had the Olympics experience and I’m grateful for that but it didn’t go exactly how I wanted it to and I would like to go back and do better and that’s my goal.”
Dickson will be back on the Otway course Sunday morning racing in the pursuit. Racers will be staggered in three-second intervals according to their sprint finishes, which means she will leave the start gate three seconds behind Quinn. The seniors and junior women will likely race the pursuit as one group, starting at 10 a.m., followed by the men’s pursuit at 1 p.m.
Dickson won’t be racing in Tuesday’s mass start event, which wraps the trials. After her race Sunday she’s heading back to Burns Lake with her sister, Allie, a national team coach, for some shooting practice at the Omineca Ski Club range.
