Canada 2023-2024 Team Preview

For Team Canada, the expectations aren’t quite as high as they might be for say the German, or French or Norwegian squads. However, just because there aren’t expectations doesn’t mean there aren’t hopes and dreams and wants. Myriam Bedard for example was a three time Olympic medalist, winning two gold in Individual and Sprint in Lillehammer and bronze in Individual in Albertville. The 2016 Canadian men won the bronze medal at the Oslo World Championships, the crowning achievement of a recent golden generation of Canadian male biathletes.  And hopes and dreams are never more than this season, one of the rare seasons when Canada will be hosting a World Cup stop, the season ending weekend no less. So do we think there is any chance for a surprise top showing this season?

Well, last year there were plenty of high points. Emma Lunder had the best races of her career. Not just once or twice but throughout the entire season. Nadia Moser started to show off some of her potential. The young Canadian men flashed some strong ability as well. Let’s go ahead and take a deeper dive into the team and see what we might reasonably expect, or in this case hope and dream, for them in the upcoming season.

Men

Quota: 4 Athletes to Start

World Cup:

Christian Gow (30)

Christian Gow enters the 2023-2024 season as the leader of the Canadian men’s team. Of course he’s got a few young guys continuing to push him forward, including one who may be ready to take on the mantle of the top on the team. For Gow though, at age 30 he remains solidly in the middle of the peak of his career. Outside of the 2019-2020 season he has been fairly steady in his performances. He continues to collect a handful of top 20s and mostly top 30-40s every year. Last year being no exception and he ended the year ranked 43rd overall, right around where is usually is.

Now, there were a few changes last season. He made a pretty solid leap in his skiing year over year. He moved up from 91st in overall ski ranking to 63rd. Nobody will confuse him with JT Boe anytime soon but that was pretty nice. Compared to the rest of the field it was the 2nd fastest year of his career. However his shooting too a pretty major dip. While not the worst shooting of his career, it was pretty close. Normally he will finish the year in the mid to high 80s. Last season’s 82.5% was a pretty major departure.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2018-2019	86.9	87.7	87.3	26.3
2019-2020	83.1	80	81.5	27.2
2020-2021	85.6	89.4	87.5	25.4
2021-2022	91.4	86.4	88.9	26.7
2022-2023	81	84	82.5	23.6

So was Christian Gow skiing faster to try to make up for his looser shooting on the range? Or was he just a little more tired on the range from the faster skiing? Or was the even faster than fast shooting time related? I’m sure there is an answer in there somewhere but right now the point is that the pieces are there for a really good season. Take the skiing form from last year, combine in his normally very good shooting (usually ranked in the top 25!), throw in his fast shooting skills, and a career year could be in the offing!

Zachary Connelly (22)

Once we past Christian Gow we immediately get into the youth movement for Team Canada. This includes Connelly, who at 22 could still be racing Juniors on the IBU. And while he only has two career World Cup starts it is almost a sure thing that this will change very early this season.

Over the last four years Connelly has increased his racing from just Youth Worlds, to more and more IBU Cup racing over the last two seasons. It turns out the more he races the better he does. Last season was easily the best of his very early career as he set new career bests both in the IBU Cup and in the Juniors. While he focused mostly on the IBU Cup he moved his average finishes up from 77th to 30th. This included in three consecutive races: His first career top 30, his first career top 20, and his first career top 10 (if you count Super Sprint Qualifying which sure, why not?). He followed that success up with a 7th place in the Junior Worlds Individual which was his best career Juniors finish.

Connelly saw pretty solid improvement in every aspect of his performance over last few seasons. His skiing last year was easily the best of his career. He was up to 30th overall in skiing on the IBU Cup which puts him just a touch behind Mats Overby (NOR) and Emilien Claude (FRA). That’s an important comparison as they are both about his age. His shooting was also up very nicely from 64% overall on the IBU Cup in 21-22 to 84% in 22-23. This included an incredible 92% prone shooting.

What can we expect from Zachary Connelly this season? Well let’s be hopeful that 2022-2023 (his age 21 season) wasn’t the peak of his career. A fair bet I would say. His skiing should only continue to improve. And we can hope that his shooting will continue to improve as well. Maybe he won’t hit 92% of his prone shots but I don’t think 84% overall is out of the question again. He finished 67th Overall on the IBU Cup last year. It will be hard for him to beat that because he’s presumably going to be spending so much time on the World Cup. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a great year!

Logan Pletz (23)

The much older (by one year) Logan Pletz has already had six whole World Cup races under his belt, all of them last season. While he never finished higher than 64th it was surely good experience including his first World Championship races. On the IBU Cup though, he was showing some really good results. He only raced two full weekends on the IBU Cup, moving up to fill the open slot left by Jules Burnotte’s mid season retirement. In those seven races though, he grabbed four top 30s including his first two top 20s. That included his career best 14th in a Sprint in val Ridanna.

While on the IBU Cup Pletz’s skiing was almost exactly the same as Connelly’s. While Connelly ended the season 1.8% faster than the average IBU Cup athlete, Pletz was 1.5% faster. For Pletz it was a really solid leap up. He went from being ranked 100th in skiing on the IBU Cup to 46th. Meanwhile his shooting was just a touch worse than Connelly averaging 78% on the IBU Cup and 74% on the World Cup. That was also improved from 72% in the 21-22 season.

So can we expect the same improvement from Pletz this year? Well, like Connelly, he remains quite young. It’s not hard to see him continuing to improve across every aspect. We just saw him take a mighty leap up in skiing. But he’s not right at the top so there is still a chance for further improvement. He’s got plenty of room to grow with shooting as well. It was just a little bit up last year. But moving from 78% overall to 84% overall (another 6% rise) would be immensely helpful. And would certainly continue to boost him up. I’m quite hopeful!

Adam Runnalls (25)

The “old man” here Runnalls, at 25, he has practically a lifetime of experience compared to Peltz and Connelly. 70 career World Cup races is a wealth of knowledge and experience. And he’s shown some really strong growth the last two seasons as well, including rising all the way up to 38th in the Overall last season. Last season this included his first career top 20s as well as six top 30s when he had just one in his career prior to that. In the process he set a new career high of 13th in the Sprint in Antholz.

Last season Runnalls was powered by a huge improvement in shooting. His skiing got a little bit better moving up from 77th to 64th overall in skiing. But it was his shooting that really made the difference last season.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2020-2021	84	72.8	78.4	27
2021-2022	87.5	65	76.3	26.2
2022-2023	81.8	83.6	82.7	23.2

It’s clear to see where the major improvement was, it was that standing shooting. He went from being well below average to decent. No 82.7% overall shooting isn’t going to set the world on fire but that’s okay. If he can get that prone shooting back up to where he was it’s not unreasonable to think that he can get his overall shooting up to 85%. I don’t think that this is impossible at all. Plus, look at that shooting time of 23.2 seconds average per shooting. That’s WILD fast.

Runnalls already finished 38th overall last season. There is plenty of reason to be optimistic that at just 25 he’s going to continue to show strong growth. I believe that we’ll see even more ski improvement this season. Hopefully that will be combined with a return to his normal solid prone shooting. It’s not impossible to think that he could find his way to a top 30 overall finish. I think that Runnalls may be ready to take on the role as top man on the team.

In the In Between

Trevor Kiers (26)

Trevor Kiers I don’t know what to make of exactly. He’s been racing consistently for the Canadian team on the IBU Cup or World Cup for the last five years. This year though he appears nowhere on the Team Canada website. From all evidence though he is training hard and has been in camp with the team though. I’m putting him under IBU Cup just because of that. He may end up running on the World Cup ahead of Connelly or Peltz though.

Kiers has been primarily on the World Cup for the last three seasons and he’s thus far had less success than I’m sure he would like. Primarily his finishes on the World Cup are in the 70s and 80s. And when you are finishing in those positions you are a little limited in your races because you don’t qualify for Pursuits much less Mass Starts. However, on the IBU Cup he has had some decent success with five top 30s in the last two seasons. THat was after a Juniors career that saw him garner five top 20s including a handful at Junior Worlds.

Unfortunately he’s struggled to turn that into World Cup success. He’s never in his life been a great shooter. The last few seasons have been the best shooting of his career. Last year he shot 71.3% on the World Cup and 71.7% on the IBU Cup. That was pretty much the best of his career. The skiing has struggled to translate as well. While he’s been around 4.2% faster than average biathlete on the IBU Cup, about on time with Lucas Fratzscher, he hasn’t been able to translate that to World Cup success.

For Kiers to reach his potential on the World Cup, which theoretically should be consistently top 40s, he’ll need to find a way to capture those levels on the World Cup. The ability is there, but its time to start taking advantage of those opportunities. Hopefully he comes out of the gate hot and we’re ready to see a whole new Trevor Kiers.

Matthew Strum (27)

Strum is another Canadian man that it is hard to get a handle on. He was racing regularly until last season. Then he took an entire year off. I wasn’t able to see exactly why, and honestly, if he doesn’t want to tell us that’s entirely up to him. We don’t need to know. But, as with Kiers, he appears to be back training full time and is aiming towards racing this season so we’ll assume that he is!

The last we saw Strum was on the IBU Cup in the 2021-2022 season when he seemed to be on a career upswing. His IBU Cup overall ranking was up to 81st, which isn’t incredible, but it was much better than his career to that point. Also that last season of racing he had two top 20s, three top 30s and finished in the top 50 in half of his races. Is that going to take him to the Biathlon Hall of Fame? No. But it was a really nice improvement year over year. This included a career best finish of 7th and 12th in Super Sprint Qualifying.

Strum appeared to be making across the board improvements. 2021-2022 was the best skiing of his career while his shooting was holding steady. It is a fool’s errand to try to guess what we’re going to see from Strum this season. I am hopeful that we’ll keep seeing that improvement that we were seeing. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see him continue to move up towards the top 50 in the IBU Cup overall.

IBU Cup and Hopefuls – From here we get into a host young men who are all a bit limited in their racing history. It’s hard to know exactly what to expect but let’s take a look at what we’ve got.

Lucas Smith (23)

Lucas Smith, like Rousseau, was limited last season to a handful of late IBU Cup starts. He didn’t start a race until the European Championships. Then he made starts in Obertilliach and Canmore. In those starts he finished in the 90s at the European Championships, and then top 40s in the limited fields in Canmore. Prior to last season he had only ever raced at Youth or Junior Championships with a career best finish of 52.

Last there wasn’t much to point to as an indication of future success. On average he was 5.4% slower than his average competitor. His total shooting percentage last year was 70%, dragged down by a 58.3% standing shooting. But of course, hopes and dreams can keep propelling you forward. Hopefully we see more this coming year!

Juniors

Romeo Champagne (21)

The man with one of the best names in biathlon has exactly two races in his IBU racing career. Not much to go off of! So what do wee see? Well he raced at Junior Worlds in Kazakhstan last season and finished 78th in the Individual and 77th in the Sprint. There really isn’t much purpose in going deep into stats on just two races. Small sample sizes and all that. So let’s do this with Champagne, aiming for more experience. That would be a great place to start.

Daniel Gilfillan (18)

Just 18 years old Gilfillan already has 11 races on the IBU Junior level. Most of the time he is finishing in the 30-40s. However, last year at Youth Worlds in Kazakhstan he did finish 11th in the Individual. It was a really nice race going 18/20 shooting and 32nd course time rank. In his career he’s improved a little in his skiing, now slightly faster than average. Meanwhile his shooting hovers around 80%. Last year in a statistical anomaly he shot 78.3% both prone and standing. Let’s see what he can do this season!

Vincent Girard (21)

As we go down the list we seem to find more and more experience. Vincent Girard has a grand total of 12 races on the Juniors level. Most races were last year but he did have a handful of races in 20-21. Thus far we are still waiting for the breakthrough as Girard’s career best finish is 58th. Maybe this will be the year?

Gavin Johnston (20)

Gavin Johnston saw his first IBU level racing last year with five total races. Against the best competition at Junior Worlds he went 78th, 48th, and 48th. His performance relied primarily on shooting 80% overall. His skiing will need some improvement but at least he’s already got the shooting component solid.

Women

Quota: 4 Athletes to Start

World Cup

Emma Lunder (32)

We get to the woman of the year for Team Canada last season. Emma Lunder had a phenomenal year with career best finishes, her best Overall ranking finish of 23rd. She had not only her first career top 5 but the first three top 5’s of her career including finishing 4th! Prior to last year she had seven total top 10s. Last year she had six. Her nine top 20’s were nearly a career best as well.

How did she do it? Well she had by FAR the best skiing year of her career, near best career shooting, and of course her usual fast shooting. Three of her four best course time ranks were last season including eighth in the Oestersund Mass Start, the best of her career. She overall was faster than average for the first time in her career.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2018-2019	74.3	74.3	74.3	25.5
2019-2020	78.6	85.7	82.1	26.8
2020-2021	84.1	87.7	85.9	27.6
2021-2022	83.1	81.5	82.3	26
2022-2023	84.2	84.8	84.6	27.1

Pretty clear that Lunder made an improvement in her shooting around three seasons ago and the changes stuck. Last season she was flat out consistent across the board. Meanwhile, like most of Team Canada, she’s just a fast shooter. She was once again top 20 in shooting time last season even while the rest of the field is catching up to them a little bit.

Can we expect the same out of Lunder this season? It’s hard to know. But last season saw improved skiing from many of the top Canadians, both men and women. At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if they found something that works. I’m sure they, and especially their coaches, all recognize the improvement that was made and I’m sure they’re aiming to replicate that this season. Meanwhile the shooting has been consistent for awhile now. While it’s always hard to predict someone to replicate a career best season lets just say it wouldn’t shock me to see her have good success again. Maybe she won’t have the same high success, although nothing would make me happier than her first career podium. Let’s go ahead and predict another great year! We’ll be cheering for it!

Nadia Moser (26)

Nadia Moser bounced back from an injury plagued 2022 season that saw her tragically miss the Olympics and looked better than ever. At the very beginning of last season she had the best skiing of her career, the fastest shooting of her career, and the most accurate shooting of her career. The scored 27th and 34th place finishes, the best of her career to that point, and all in all she looked like she was set up for a huge breakthrough. Then she broke her leg and missed the last two trimesters.

Moser returned last season and looked great! Right off the start she finished 31st in the season opening Individual and off she went. She grabbed two more career bests with a 23rd and a 24th. In total she ended up with five top 30s and 10 top 40s on her way to the 44th Overall.

Pretty easy to see that the broken leg didn’t hold her back. You can see the jump in skiing that she made from 20-21 to 21-22. She maintained that new speed and didn’t let it drop off at all. In fact she was just a tiny bit faster. She went from 1% slower than average to 0.7% slower than average. No, she’s not a speed demon. Not even quite Emma Lunder, but it’s a far cry from where she was previously at 3.4% slower than average.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2019-2020	76.3	62.5	69.4	28.2
2020-2021	83.8	76.3	80	29.8
2021-2022	92	88	90	29.2
2022-2023	90.4	79.2	84.8	26.7

The good news when looking at the shooting is that there is a pretty clear area for improvement. Just like with skiing Moser clearly found something in her prone shooting before the 21-22 shooting. It carried right over to this most recent shooting hitting over 90% prone in both years. Now it is time for the standing shooting to catch up. It is already much bettter than where she started. If we can get it up to maybe, like 85% she’s going to be in a good spot.

Okay, so where does that leave us? Let’s say very optimistic. I’m hopeful that the version we see of Moser this year is something like this: About average skiing, 90% prone, and 84% standing for a total shooting around 87.5%. Then her normal fast shooting. Overall that profiles similar to Yulia Dzhima from last season who finished 33rd Overall. That would be another nice improvement and a very good year!

Benita Peiffer (23)

The further down this list we go the younger we get. At just 23 years old Peiffer is entering what should be her 3rd full season on the World Cup level. So far in her career she’s basically only raced Juniors or World Cup. Thus far in her World Cup career her successes have been a little bit limited. She’s yet to score her first point on the World Cup, but again, she is only 23. And if you look at her first two seasons she did go from an average finish of nearly 100 to 75th. That’s definitely an improvement even if its not massive.

We’ve seen some good signs too. Her skiing definitely improved. When she first came to the World Cup she was regularly finishing nearly the back of the pack. She’s not quite Elvira Oeberg yet but she moved her average course time rank up from 92nd to 62nd. That’s a hefty gain. And at just 23 I’m sure there is more to find in those legs. Meanwhile her overall hit rate went up from 67% to 74.5%. Again, another solid improvement. Also still plenty of room to grow there. This season lets hope for growth. Just a bit better in every category and continued experience racing. The improvement has been there, we just want to keep seeing it come!

IBU Cup and Hopefuls

Emily Dickson (26)

After splitting time between the IBU Cup and World Cup in 2021-2022, this most recent season saw Emily Dickson return full time to the World Cup. That 21-22 season saw her finishing mostly in the 20-30s so it was a deserved promotion back to the World Cup level. Arriving back on the World Cup level last year though was a bit of a struggle as she only managed to get above 70th in one race.

To be optimistic about it, which is what we prefer to do, we see room for improvement across the board. Last season Dickson’s average course time rank was 75th. Her shooting splits were 68% prone, 82% standing, and 75% overall.

Hopefully what we see this season is Dickson having the type of skiing improvement that so many others on the team have had. Unfortunately it seems that she didn’t ride that wave that the rest of the team did as her average course time rank was 75th, 78th and 75th the last three years on the World Cup. If we could also see a little improvement in prone shooting to get that overall shooting closer to 80% that would be a nice season. We’re not looking for a massive breakthrough to push for a top 25 overall., but maybe a goal of scoring points or qualifying for a few pursuits would be a good place to start? It would be really fun to see!

Pascale Paradis (21)

Last year during this same exercise I made mention of Pascale Paradis being my favorite and most exciting of the young Canadians. The reason why was because in her Juniors career she was almost always top 10 in course time and had several top 10’s overall including a career best 6th on the Juniors. A year later, even though she only ran four races on the IBU Cup (or anywhere), I still feel the same way. In her first four races on the IBU Cup, at just 20, she finished 16, 24, 18, and 26. For reference she was finishing on time with Sara Andersson (SWE), Maya Cloetens (BEL), and Tamara Steiner (AUS). Not bad company at all. After that it appears that she raced for her collegiate team. Her course time ranks were all better than 35th and she shot either 80 or 90% in all four races.

It remains to be seen what we’ll see of her this season. Will she give us a few more glimpses on the IBU circuit or continues to focus more on collegiate racing? However, I continue to have high hopes for her. What else needs to be seen other than what she has done to date and especially last season?

Jenna Sherrington (21)

Continuing with the youth movement in the Canadian team, Jenna Sherrington at just 21 already has 15 IBU Cup races including 9 last season. Last season she had the best success of her young career including a 31st in a Mass 60. She also raced at Junior Worlds last year and 15, 32, and 24th.

She did show a nice improvement in her skiing (it’s a theme with the Canadian team!). On the IBU Cup her skiing went from average course time rank of 81 to 56th. It’s a solid improvement! Unfortunately she remained at least 5% slower than the average biathlete. Looking at her Juniors racing she was about 2% faster than average junior biathlete which was about her career average. That leaves a good amount of room for improvement! Meanwhile shooting took a little step backward from 87% back to 81%. When looking at her Juniors racing she averaged shooting in the low 80’s so that’s about her normal.

So what does this mean for Sherrington going forward this season? Well in my opinion we see plenty of room for improvement. She’s just 21 so lots and lots of room to grow. She’s still even a Junior level athlete so we’ll likely see her on the IBU Cup and again at the Junior Worlds. Maybe even 1-2 starts on the World Cup? Her goal though is just a little bit better everywhere and we’ll see what happens next.

Gillian Gowling (24)

Gillian Gowling is developing a little bit of a reputation for late peak each season. The last two years she’s started out a little slow only to peak at the end of the season. In 21-22 she was pretty much below 50 for the fist two trimesters and then closed the season with her best finishes the last two seeks. Last season again she started out with most of her finishes below 50 until the last trimester. Starting in Obertilliach she scored top 40’s in seven of her last eight races. This included her first career top 30s and a career best 22nd in Canmore.

No surprise that her statistical performance was similar. She had by far her best performances later in the season. Her course time ranks prior to Canmore were in the 50-60s but in Canmore jumped to the 30s. Her shooting was the one consistent in her season. She was almost always 80-85% except for four races when she hit just 50-60% and dragged her season average down to 75%.

So here’s the goal for Gillian Gowling: don’t wait until the 3rd trimester! Come right out of the gate with it! Last season her peaks were higher than the 21-22 season so that would be a secondary goal: even higher peaks! As with almost the entire rest of the team, I remain hopeful. She’s still so young there is time for both improved consistency and improved peaks. Let’s see it!

Janice Grundahl (23)

Janice Grundahl is yet another Canadian woman in her early 20s. She, though, unlike her teammates, has absolutely 0 Juniors experience. She made her IBU racing debut last season on the IBU Cup. In her first year of racing she actually had a decent amount of success. Like some of her teammates, a lot of that came in Canmore. There is good reason for that I believe. Part of it is that it was home snow. But also a lot of teams didn’t send their IBU teams to Canada so there was literally less competition. However these athletes still competed very well.

Last year before Canmore she actually did have a couple of decent finishes with a 30th and 33rd in Val Ridanna. The next time we saw her was in Canmore when in 4 races she finished 13, 34, 37 and 37. When looking at her performance though, the one thing that stands out though, is that she has a strength. Really outside of Pascale Paradis most of these other young Canadians haven’t yet established a strength yet. For Grundahl though, she has her shooting. She ran 11 races on the IBU Cup last season and hit 90% of her targets in 8 of those races.

Next season se has a couple of goals that are easy to see. For one, just keep racing. Her other goa though is going to be working that skiing up to match her shooting. If she can keep her shooting around 90% she’s going to keep herself in a lot of races. She just needs to work on the speed to take advantage of it.

Shilo Rousseau (23)

Shilo Rousseau comes into the new season with not very much data for us to analyze. While she was a Junior, racing from 16-17 to 21-22 he finished primarily from the 40-50’s. On the IBU Cup she raced a handful of races in 20-21 and then again last season. Those initial races saw limited success finishing in the 70-90s. Then last year she didn’t do a ton of traveling, racing on the IBU Cup races in Canmore. However, she showed very well there amongst the limited field. In six races he finished no worse than 28th including a 7th in a Super Sprint Qualifying, 11th in a Pursuit, and 14th in Mass 60.

Looking primarily at his performance in those Canmore races, not surprisingly she looked pretty strong. Her course time ranks were all between 18-32. Her shooting was solid as well with a decent 84.4% overall shooting. That didn’t appear to be an accident either as that was a few points better than her prior IBU Cup races. With such limited data we’ll be hopeful that she can translate that Canmore IBU Cup success into something over the course of an entire season. If she replicated that for an entire year she could find his way to the top 20 in the Overall standings in the IBU Cup.

Juniors

Ema Chlepkova (20)

20 year old Ema Chlepkova made her IBU Juniors debut last season with a solid six races. She started the season out racing the full first weekend on the IBU Juniors Cup and scored two top 30s in four races. We next saw her at Junior Worlds where she finished 70th and 67th. Not a lot to go off of there. Her course time ranks were generally 30-40s. Her shooting was all of the map from a peak of 90% to a low of 40%. It’s only six races and no clear pattern standing out. We’ll have to see more to get a better idea of what kind of athlete she’s going to be. And hopefully we start seeing more of her this season!

Desiree Paradis (19)

The Paradis family is the gift that keeps on giving for the Canadian women! After racing just three races in 21-22 Desiree Paradis increased to seven races last season. She raced the first weekend on the IBU Juniors Cup and scored a couple of top 40s. Then at Youth Worlds she went 33, 14, and 22nd.

In that 14th place Sprint at Worlds she actually had the 23rd best course time that day. It was by far her best day on the skis. Normally she was in the 30-40s in course time rank. But she’s also usually racing against women who are a couple of years older than her. We’ll see how that shakes out over the next year or so. Her shooting though is decent, going 82% last year with 90% prone. Hopefully that’s a sign of things to come. Her sister was just starting to show her potential at this age so lets hope this is a big year for the younger Paradis!

Anna Marino (19)

Anna Marino will be entering her third season this winter. Last year, in addition to racing Youth Worlds she also raced the first two weekends of the IBU Junior Cup. In the process she grabbed her first four top 30s including a career best 23rd. Her performance has been on a general upward trajectory over the last two seasons. In 21-22 her course time ranks were in the 40-50s. She started out last season in the 30s. And then reached the teens and 20s at Youth Worlds. It is a very reassuring pattern.

Unfortunately her shooting has been generally in the 70% range. Oftentimes even worse. I have to say I’m optimistic though. She has a level of skiing that can help her stay competitive. And it won’t take a large amount of improvement in shooting to really boost her finishes. Last year at Youth Worlds she hit 80% and still moved up from 24th to 15th largely on the back of her 15th ranked course time. Let’s see what she can do with a little more experience.

Moira Green (19)

Just like Desiree Paradis and Anna Marino, Moira Green started racing on the Junior level in 21-22 with Youth Worlds and last year added on several other Junior events. Over those 12 races she’s been top 40 in 8 of them. I know what you might be thinking, its Juniors so there can’t be that many people. Well there were 111 finishers in the first weekend of the Junior Cup this last season. Green did even better when it came time for Youth Worlds. She finished 36, 17, and 20th in those three races with 17 and 20 being her career best finishes.

Green’s ski ranks are fairly decent. During IBU Junior Cup races she’s generally finishing with a course time rank in the 20’s and 30s’. However in Youth Worlds against her own age cohort she’s up to the teens in course time rank. Shooting has been the big thing holding Green back. While she has her good days, her averages remain mediocre. Last year over the course of the year she averaged just 66.4% total shooting. With her skiing talent she really does have potential to be good. She just needs to match it up with some decent shooting. I’m really hoping to see a few more days in the 80’s this season!

Danika Burke (20)

Danika Burke has one of the more interesting race careers on the Canadian Developmental Team. She has five career races with two at an Junior IBU Cup weekend, two at Junior European Championships and one on the IBU Cup. The really interesting thing is that the Junior Cup event that she raced was not raced by any of her teammates who also raced on the Junior Cup. I would love to know exactly what happened there so that she was racing a little separately from the rest of the team.

Well during those races she didn’t have huge success. Her best finish of the year was actually 45th at the IBU Cup in Canmore. The rest of her finishes were between 58th and 88th. Her shooting was between 60-85%. But it was such an odd year that I’m not entirely sure what to make of it The answer, as it has been for so many of these athletes, is we need to see more. Would love to see more!

Alexandra Hulshof (18)

Young Alexandra Hulshof has just six races in her IBU career, with all of them being at Youth Worlds over the last two seasons. In those races she has a career best of 26th but every other race has been in the 40s and 50s. Her skiing ranks are extremely consistent in the 40s. Shooting is a bit all over the map but has finished usually between 50-85%. With just six races to her career it is hard to glean much except it is remarkable that with such wild shooting she continues to have such regular finishes. In the one day she shot well, 85%, she managed a 26th place. I’m hopeful that this season we see her race maybe one additional weekend in addition to Youth Worlds. And maybe we’ll see just a slight ski improvement with some improved shooting consistency.

Anna Perry (20)

Anna Perry has just two IBU events to look at in which she finished 72nd and 77th at Youth Worlds last season. Hopefully this year we see more of her!

Quinn Morgan (21)

And finally for the Canadian women, Quinn Morgan who has the interesting history of having raced on the IBU Cup before racing as a Junior. Last year was her first Juniors racing with seven total races. He finished between 42nd and 78th in each race. Morgan was relies mostly on her ski speed, skiing a little faster than average while only hitting 65% of her targets.