Olympian shoots to pursuit title Former Fort Kent resident Lanny Barnes edges Canadian Sandra Keith

FORT KENT – Lanny Barnes was feeling at home on the 10th Mountain Ski Center range Sunday. Still, the 2006 Olympian knew she had to back off a bit before firing her final shot in the 10-kilometer senior women’s pursuit race at the North American and U.S. biathlon championships.

“In the past I’ve always been known to cowboy shoot, shoot ’em really fast, and that hasn’t always worked,” said Durango, Colo. native Barnes. “Today I started out shooting real fast and I thought, maybe I should resettle and make sure I hit these last couple. They were really important.”

Brilliant shooting propelled the former Fort Kent resident and Maine Winter Sports Center skier to the pursuit title, her second of the three-day championships which wrapped up Sunday. Barnes edged fast-skiing Canadian and fellow Olympian Sandra Keith of Biathlon Alberta by 46.4 seconds, settling things on the range when Barnes cleaned, or hit all five targets, the final shooting stage and Keith missed two shots.

Jamie Robb, also of Biathlon Alberta, came up big in the final shooting stage of the senior men’s 12.5K race. Firing with his competition standing next to him, Robb cleaned to hold off two Canadians for the title.

Madawaska native Meagan Toussaint came from behind in the 10K junior women’s race and wound up second overall and tops among the U.S. finishers.

The overall winner of an event is the North American champion, while the top American finisher is the U.S. champion.

In the pursuit event, athletes start in the same intervals in which they finished in the previous day’s sprint races. Racers each have four shooting stages, two in the prone position and then two in the standing. Each missed shot requires a lap in the penalty loop.

Barnes and Robb both won Saturday’s sprints and so started first Sunday.

In the women’s race, Barnes was able to hold off Keith early as they both missed a shot each in the first two stages. But Keith had the lead – by Barnes’ design – as the two skied into the third shooting stage, where Keith missed one target and Barnes shot clean.

Despite the penalty, Keith made up even more time in the second-to-last skiing circuit and both women entered the range together for their final shooting stage.

Barnes hit two quick targets, took a second, then hit two more. Before her final shot she readjusted her rifle and popped off the final shot for clean shooting and the win.

“[Keith] was skiing really well, so I knew those last two stages were crucial to staying in front of her,” Barnes said. “I just made sure I took a little bit of extra time to settle down in the second standing. On the first standing I let her pass me so I had the advantage of seeing what she was doing. Luckily it all worked out.”

Keith missed her first and fourth shots and was 36.1 seconds behind.

“Unfortunately when you come into the range at the same time as someone, you can either be totally calm and in your own element or the pressure can take over a little bit,” she said. “For me, I wasn’t totally focused on myself, which was a mistake. I had two penalties and lost the gold medal.”

Barnes’ twin sister Tracy was third.

Toussaint, a University of Maine-Presque Isle student who skies for the MWSC team, started 2:09 behind four other competitors. She missed four total in the standing but was clean in the prone, using advice from MWSC coach Gary Colliander.

“My coach told me before I started to just trust my shot,” Toussaint said. “It sounds simple, but it didn’t occur to me that I should trust my rifle and trust that the targets are going to fall down. That really worked for me.”

MWSC team member Hilary McNamee of Fort Fairfield was third among the U.S. finishers.

MWSC skiers Grace Boutot of Fort Kent and Andrea Mayo of Oxbow were second and third, respectively, among the U.S. finishers in the 7.5K youth race.

In the senior men’s race, Robb was in a similar situation to Barnes in the final shooting stage with Biathlon Alberta’s David Leoni and Biathlon Quebec’s Jean-Philippe Le Guellec as the three top men stood next to each other and all shot together.

Robb emerged with clean shooting as Le Guellec missed two and Leoni missed four. Le Guellec wound up second, 46.4 seconds behind Robb.

“I made a move to come in first to the range [for the final shooting], more for psychological tactics than anything,” Robb said. “I know both those guys tend to be faster shooters than myself so I wanted to have even those two seconds. I heard them miss a couple. It’s a good thing it didn’t throw me off my rhythm.”

Stockholm native Russell Currier of the MWSC took fifth overall and second among U.S. finishers in the 12.5K men’s junior race.

Robb’s brother Daniel, also of Biathlon Alberta, had the best shooting of the day’s competitions with just one penalty as he completed a three-race sweep. Caribou’s Philip Willey was the third U.S. finisher.