Ginger Money was cash in the bank Thursday at the Canadian biathlon championships.
World Cup veteran Aidan Millar, known for his ginger complexion, teamed up with Beijing Olympian Megan Bankes for their final race as senior national team members and together they were a dynamic duo in the single mixed relay.
They used their international experience, solid shooting performances and slightly faster ski times to beat hometown favourite Sarah Beaudry and her race partner Andrei Secu of West Coast Nordic in the race for gold in the 13.5-kilometre relay.
Four races, four gold medals for Bankes – it was an impressive show of consistency in the five-day event at Otway Nordic Centre.
“That’s pretty good,” Bankes said. “Glad I had Aidan on my team.”
Her dominance at nationals, a month after she competed in her first Olympics, put the cap on Bankes’s competitive career and the Calgary native will now think the next four years attending UBC’s forestry science program.
“It’s time for me to have a different chapter in my life,” she said.
Millar, whose relay win was his first medal at nationals, has applied to study civil engineering in the fall at either Carleton or Concordia.
“It was nice to race with Megan, we’ve been teammates on and off for a long time (since 2012) and I don’t think we had ever done a relay together,” said Millar, a native of Canmore, who cleaned his first round, had one penalty his second bout, used two spares in Round 3 and shot clean in his final standing bout.
Bankes and Millar had just one penalty each and they finished the course in 44:15.2, 1:12.3 ahead of Team Legend (Secu/Beaudry).
“It was tough conditions out there, but it was fun,” Millar said. “Relays are always fun races and single mixed are even more fun than traditional relays, just faster and more shooting and everything is a bit tighter.”
Snow conditions in their morning race were not fast because the course didn’t freeze overnight but the forecast rain showers never developed and that came as a huge relief for everybody involved in the race. Beaudry picked up where she left off in the women’s team relay at the Olympics, and in all four races this week she showed the Otway crowd she can still pick the eye out of snake from 50 metres away. She used just three spares to get though four shooting rounds penalty-free, matching Secu’s shooting proficiency.
“Andrei shot really well – he didn’t go in the loop - and I’d say it was good shooting for me,” said Beaudry.
“It was a little bit mushy but I’m happy it didn’t rain, the sky’s been nice to us today. Mass start team events are always fun, lots of head-to-head and I think with just the mix of who’s here from each division it makes it so it’s a fun race between everybody’s ability.”
Secu is based in Whistler and he and Beaudry spent some in practice time Tuesday working out the tagging strategy, which he says paid off.
“We would kind of yell at each other when the person getting tagged should speed up so then we were able to leave the tagging zone faster and so we were hitting that first hill with a little more speed than other teams,” said Secu, who also has raced his last national-level race. “It was just fun to be out there in the mix and have some tight racing.”
Trevor Kiers of Sprucedale, Ont., who won all three of his solo races leading up to the relays, combined with Zoe Pekos of Chelsea Nordiq on the Ontario 2 team to win bronze, 3:13.8 off the winning pace.
Unlike Millar and Bankes, who have announced their retirements from the sport, Beaudry is still deciding what’s in store for her and whether she will remain a full-time athlete to take a shot at competing in her third Olympics in 2026.
“The plan is to enjoy my April and then make decisions then,” said Beaudry, who is planning a well-deserved trip to Barbados next month with her partner Millar and his family. “Especially these last few years, with COVID, it’s just been isolating and hard so I’ll have to see what I want to do with everything and I’ll make that decision after I have time to breathe.”
If Beaudry does decide to pack in after seven years on the senior national team, her time spent this past week racing at home as the role-model jackrabbit mentor of the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club would be fitting farewell.
“It was so nice to be at home, there’s so much support and so much cheering, just to be with my parents (Leisbet and Pierre) and I know they’ve worked so hard with everyone else in Prince George to put this event on so I’m happy it’s gone well,” said Beaudry.
“I don’t think I was quite ready from the warmth of the sun, from the minus-20 in China to the warmth we had this week it was a little bit warm.”
In other morning results Thursday, Where’s Joe? (Bjorn Baergen and Anna Marino of Team Trail Sports - Canmore) captured gold in the youth men’s/youth women’s single mixed relay, clocking 46:09.7 with three penalties. Their margin of victory was a mere 2.2 seconds ahead of Bulletproof (Alexander Hatloe of Sea To Sky/Parker Munroe of Sovereign Lake), who took silver, four-tenths of a second ahead of third-place Eagle Eyes (Benjamin Rousseau of Team Trail Sports/Alexandra Hulshof of Foothills Nordic--Calgary).
Ontario 3 (Troy Martel of Hardwood Ski Club – Collingwood and Shilo Rousseau of Chelsea Nordiq) captured the junior men/junior women relay crown in 45:31.2, and both shot clean. Quebec 3 (Simon Gauthier/ Zachary Demers of La Poursuite) won silver, and No Snow Plow (Halden Borglum of Foothills/Avry Niven of Battle River Nordic of Sherwood Park, Alta.) claimed bronze.
Caledonia racer Moira Green just missed out on her fourth medal of the week. She had just three penalties in four bouts while teaming up with Gavin Johnston of Vancouver Island Ski Club on Up to No Good and they finished fifth.
Liam Simons of Caledonia was also deadly accurate with his rifle with just two penalties on his way to an 11-place result on TNT with Sophia Ledingham of Vancouver Island.
