Flora Csonka’s first crack at the shooting range Sunday at Otway Nordic Centre began with a missed target.
Ominous sign? Not really.
Csonka didn’t let that one wayward shot in the youth women’s pursuit steal her focus.
There’s too much at stake in the Biathlon Canada Junior/Youth World Championships national team trials this week in Prince George with the chance to represent Canada in the world finals coming up later this month in Sweden.
Csonka learned early on in her years of training at Canmore Nordic Centre with the Foothills Nordic Ski Club one missed shot is no big deal, not when you can follow that with 19 straight hits, which is what she did.
There was no stopping the 17-year-old Calgarian who cruised to the win in 27:44.9, beating sprint winner Cheyenne Tirschmann of Whitehorse for top spot on the podium by an 89-second margin.
“Cheyenne is insanely fast and it’s very hard to race around someone that's so insanely talented," said Csonka. "I was just trying to keep going and I was getting more tired as the hill got steeper, but I made it to the finish with no crashes.”
After a silver finish in the sprint, Csonka is in great shape to lock up a Team Canada berth with only the mass start race Tuesday left on the schedule and a trip to Sweden beckoning her.
“I’m very motivated. It’s hard to keep motivated the entire year and there’s lots of ups and downs and I started the year not great,” said Csonka. “But it looks to be a little better now and I’m hoping the training pays off all the way through the week. I’m hoping I can keep my form just one more day.
Csonka’s aversion to skiing penalty loops moved her to the head of the 28-skier field early in the 10-kilometre race and by the time she completed her first standing shooting bout, Prince George sisters Iona and Isla Cadell were standing side-by-side in the range waging a battle for second place, knowing it was going to be tough to catch the visitor from Alberta.
Both Caledonia Nordic Ski Club members left two targets up in Round 3 and were still in the silver-medal hunt as they lined up together for the second standing. But 16-year-old Isla, the sprint bronze medalist, missed just one target in her final bout and 18-year-old Iona had three misses to deal with, which knocked her out of podium contention.
Tirschmann went 4-for-5 in her final bout and was breathing down Isla Cadell’s neck as they headed up the first hill from the range and made the pass soon after, finishing in 27:13.8 to claim silver, 20 seconds ahead of Isla Cadell (27:33.0) the Caledonian hometown favourite.
“It was pretty hard but I missed my shot so I knew I had to ski fast,” said Tirschmann, 17, who recovered from a shaky 5-for-10 start to win her second medal of the trials. “My third and fourth bout of standing shooting I hit four and that really helped.
“The course is really fun, it’s really technical but I love that. Lots of fun corners and great snow conditions.”
Isla Cadell started third in the order, based on her sprint result, and was thrilled to have Iona sticking with her on the course in the pursuit.
“It was so fun, I love racing with Iona, it’s like having my best friend in the race with me and we’ve trained each other our whole lives so we know how to ski fast and we’ve been put up against each other before and it’s so much fun,” she said.
“I was sad, I wanted to tie with her. I don’t think we’ve had one of those that tight before.”
The Cadells are the daughters of Scottish parents, Ali and Will, and have already qualified to race for Great Britain at the youth world championship, Jan. 24-March 5 in Oertersund, Sweden.
Iona finished Sunday’s race sixth, ahead of Caledonia clubmates Gabby Hoehn, eighth (29:30.3); Aliah Turner, 11th (29:43.9); Payton Sinclair, 18th (31:37.3) and Natalie Hoehn, 25th (37:33.5)
The senior women and junior women raced together in the pursuit and World Cup/IBU Cup veteran Emily Dickson, skiing for her Burns Lake home Omineca Ski Club, reeled in the victory.
Dickson, 27, went 16-for-20 on the range and had to be quick on her skis to keep up to Janice Grundall of Qu’Appelle Valley Ski Club in Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask. Grundall, 25, cleaned 19 targets before she had her one and only miss.
“I had one miss every bout, which was kind of frustrating, it would have been nice to have one clean bout at least and I thought the last one would be the time but I’ll settle for 16 today,” said Dickson.
I had one misfire which kind of threw me off in the first standing but nothing too major. I probably didn’t close the (rifle) bolt all the way. Because it is a bit colder it sometimes is a bit stickier. I thought it was reloaded and ready to go but I pulled the trigger and nothing went off, so I had to reload.
“(Grundall) cleaned the first three bouts so every time I came out of the penalty look about the same time behind her, which felt like deja-vu each time. It was a tough race.”
Green, 20, has won both junior races at the trials and is in good position to retain her status as defending Canadian junior champion and qualify for the world finals. She missed two in her first prone shooting and in her standing bout and ended up 16-for-20.
Green finished in 33:12.18 for junior women’s gold ahead of silver medalist Alexandra Hulshof of Foothills (34:14.1) and Ema Chlepkova of Foothills (35:51.0).
“It was hard, it’s such a different mental game in pursuits than in an individual start,” said Green. “Ideally you just go as in your own race and come into the range and it’s bam, bam, bam, your own shots, but I can’t race like that. I’m in the range and I hear them announce my name, and I’m in the penalty loop (thinking) where are my teammates, are they going by or not, so I have a lot to work on. It’s easier when the seniors are in front because instead of focusing where I am compared to the juniors I’m bit thinking, I’m in the lead. I went pretty hard because (Saturday) I didn’t shoot so well and I could feel it. I was feeling tired.”
The 48 female and 52 male racers will get a chance to sleep in with a training day ahead on Monday.
Dickson won’t race in Tuesday’s mass start event at Otway. She went back to Burns Lake to train for the European Open championships at the end of the month in Martell, Italy.
