March 04, 2010 (Canmore, Alberta) – Beautiful weather is becoming a trend at the Canmore Nordic Center this winter. Racers could not have ordered nicer weather during last month’s FIS Cross Country World Cup, and the sunshine was repeated on Wednesday, for the start of the 2010 Canadian Biathlon National Championships, though the wax techs might have had something to say about the unusually warm temperatures.

Things got underway with the men’s 10km sprint event. The men set fast ski times on the early laps, but all remained very close until the first round of shooting, which saw North West Territories skier Brendan Green drop back to third after missing two prone shots. Scott Perras of Saskatchewan missed two standing shots, and finished 9 seconds ahead of Green. Quebec’s Robin Clegg blew away the field, shooting clean and skiing a very fast 25 minute, 9 second time. In 4th place with a great and clean race was Albertan Scott Gow, in his first season racing with the men. Olympian Jean-Phillipe Le Guellec finished a surprising 6th.

For the women’s 7.5km sprint, the sun continued to shine bright until just after the first racers left the start. What had been frozen, fast conditions for the men had now deteriorated into a slower, wet course for the women, which had the wax techs busily cutting rills into the racers skis to help them shed water.

Freshly returned from a successful Olympics, Megan Tandy of British Columbia took the win, with a clean race, 33 seconds ahead of the other Megan, Megan Imrie of Manitoba who missed only one prone shot. In third was Alberta’s Zina Kocher, who had a tough day at the range missing three prone shots and one standing, and had to ski a total of four penalty loops.

On Thursday, in a departure from standard practice, will be the individual races for men/20km and women/15km (normally the pursuit follows the sprint). The start order for Saturday’s pursuit is determined by results from Wednesday’s sprints.