Speedy skiing paces Blondeau to junior women’s 12.5K win

PRESQUE ISLE – Marion Blondeau has already stood on the podium with a top-3 finish in the 2006 Biathlon Junior World Championships twice this week. On Tuesday, Blondeau reached the top step.

Blondeau’s speedy skiing, on a day where wind and snow made things erratic on the shooting range, boosted her to a victory in the 12.5-kilometer junior women’s individual event at the Nordic Heritage Ski Center.

“It’s very magical,” France’s Blondeau said through a translator. “If anybody told me that before coming here that I ever would have bronze, silver and gold, I would have said, impossible.”

Veronika Vitkova seemed just as stunned to have won her first medal of the world championships. She had five penalties, but fast skiing helped her win the 10K youth women’s individual race in front of hundreds of local schoolchildren who cheered on Fort Fairfield native Hilary McNamee.

The individual competition is considered a shooter’s race because each miss on the shooting range means a one-minute time penalty. There are four shooting stages in the order of prone-standing-prone-standing, and five ski loops.

But with all three women at the top of the junior results missing just three shots, Blondeau won it on the course. She finished in a time of 41 minutes, 40.1 seconds, while teammate Pauline Macabies of France was 24.3 seconds behind her and Germany’s Caroline Hennecke was third, 1:02 behind Blondeau.

Blondeau has missed only two prone shots all week. She cleared all 10 prone shots Tuesday, missed one in the first standing state and missed two in the second standing stage. The late misses, Blondeau said, came because she knew she was in first and wanted to shoot fast to maintain the lead.

“I skied very hard and I really had to hang in there in the shooting,” she said. “It was a really good race for me and I pulled everything together. That’s why it was so meaningful.”

It was her second individual world championship – Blondeau won the youth title in 2004 in Haute Marienne, France.

The three penalties of the top three junior finishers would have been among the best results in the youth 10K individual.

Vitkova had two penalties in her first two stages, shot clean in the third, missed one target on the fourth stage, and finished in 39:12.5 in the youth women’s race.

“I think that she is more [surprised to have won] than we are here,” said IBU vice president of sport Janez Vodicar, who translates for some of the athletes who don’t speak English.

Russia’s Irina Maximova picked up her second medal of the week. The second-place finisher in the sprint, she was the runner-up with perfect prone shooting and two penalties in each of the standing stages. She was 16.5 seconds behind Vitkova.

Olena Pidhrushna of the Ukraine also had four penalties and wound up in third place, 40 seconds off the leader. Megan Tandy of Canada had the best shooting results in the youth race with three penalties but finished in eighth place.

Brynden Manbeck, a 19-year-old from Grand Rapids, Mich., recorded the top U.S. finish of both races, coming in 24th in the youth women’s event. She had eight penalties – one in each of the prone and three in each of the standing (youth women).

“My prone was really decent but my standing is not so good,” said Manbeck, who was sixth in the sprint Saturday. “It was definitely gusty today but it settled down a little bit.”

McNamee’s fans turned out to watch her finish 41st in the youth women’s race. Her fans waved flags, rang cowbells, and chanted “Hil-a-ry!” when she crossed the finish line. McNamee said she could probably name most of the kids in the stands.

McNamee shot well in the first two competitions but faltered a bit Tuesday with 13 penalties.

“I think maybe I was not focused enough for shooting. Maybe I was a little distracted,” she said. “But it wasn’t pressure, definitely. It was just excitement. [The kids] were great.”