Liam Sinclair and his sister Payton are taking aim at a common goal as they set their sights for the new biathlon season.
The two UNBC students will be in Canmore, Alta., Nov. 5-9, for the FISU World University Games Canadian team trials.
If they make the cut they’ll be going to Italy for the Games, Jan. 13-23, to race on the course to be used for the 2026 Olympics.
The Sinclair siblings, aided by their father Aaron and mother Stacey, who have been fixtures monitoring their training sessions at Otway Nordic Centre, both feel in the best physical shape of their lives to start the season.
“It’s very exciting to have an opportunity to go to in the University Games in Torino, Italy, it would be very cool to compete in an Olympic-level course, I’ll do my best and hopefully qualify” said Liam Sinclair, 19, a second-year biology student at UNBC, while taking a break in his interval training at the Otway range.
“It’s great to have (Payton) here, she pushed me in more ways than I can imagine and definitely drags me out of bed on those hard mornings and gets me out here.”
Only the top six males and top six female biathletes will make the Canadian team.
Caledonia club cross-country skier Jacqui Benson was the most recent Prince George athlete to compete as a skier in the International University Sports Federation (FISU), formerly known as Universiade. Benson raced at the 22207 Universiade in Pragelato, Italy
“We’ve been training for so long for this so I’m pretty fired up, ready to go,” said Payton, a first-year chemistry student. “We’ve been training together all summer, really trying to push each other as much as we can. Of course (Liam) is faster than me but I still try to chase him down every chance I get.”
Payton, 18, says her brother is now more accurate on the shooting range, but it wasn’t always that way. In the 10 years they’ve been competing as members of the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club she’s got the overall edge when they compare their race scores.
“Right now he’s probably better, but if you look at past years, I’ve got him,” she said.
“We started biathlon at the same time. He did join a year later than he could have so he could wait for me. He’s a good brother.”
Payton went through the national team trials last year and feels much more comfortable going back to Canmore this year.
“This year I know how the system works, know the nerves of racing alongside the national team and not let them freak me out as much.”
Liam raced in Canmore four times last season and is familiar with the trails. He lived and trained at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Club near Vernon, where they were skiing in late October with the early snow in the mountains. Otway has snow-making equipment in place and with the smooth new pavement it won’t take much to get an early base on the trails that were paved a couple weeks ago.
The Caledonia club just completed a project to build a new network of paved trails that form a three-kilometre loop that leads into the stadium area. There’s also a solid concrete shooting wall to replace the concrete blocks that used to be there. Ski racers will no longer have to go to the BCR Industrial Site and Willowcale Road for their off-season roller ski training.
“It’s fantastic, it’s been a dream to have a roller ski course out here,” said Liam. “I’m looking forward to trying it. It will make a huge difference to those us who are training, especially at a high level. We’ll be able to continue to do our sport and work on our technique year-round.”
As tantalizing as it has been for the city’s young athletes to get on roller skis and give the course a try, they’ve been told they have to stay off it to give the asphalt surface time to harden so it won’t get damaged by the tips of their poles
Former Olympian Tuppy Hoehn (nee Collard), who coaches of the Caledonia biathlon team with Ali Cadell, says Otway’s facilities for skiing and biathlon are world-class. She knows what’s she’s talking about, having competed in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, after several years on the World Cup circuit.
“It basically puts us up there with the world’s best facilities, it’s amazing,” said Hoehn. “It just allows us to be able to train at a high level year-round. We’re already a world-class winter facility but in the summer this was a big gap for us, especially in biathlon, because we couldn’t roller ski on site. The more race-specific training you can do throughout the year, the better prepared you are going into the season.
“Our facility rivals any other in Europe.”
The Canmore races, which include two sprints and a pursuit, will also determine Canada’s teams for the World Cup and IBU Cup circuits.
Emily Dickson of Burns Lake, a 2020 Olympian, and national development team member Moira Green of Prince George are also slated to compete in the trials.
The Caledonia club will host the youth/junior world championships trials, Jan. 3-7 at Otway. The other big event for the Sinclairs is the national biathlon championships in Valcartier, Que. in March.
The FISU cross-country skiing Canadian team trials are in Vernon, Dec. 6-7.
Caledonia athletes Ben Gadd, Jasper Kohut, Odin Witso and Nicholas Veeken will be there trying to make the Canadian team.
