Mark Arendz took advantage of a perfect day of shooting to win his fourth medal of the World Para Nordic Skiing Championships – a silver in the biathlon individual race on Thursday in Prince George, B.C.
Arendz, of Springton, P.E.I., rattled off 20 targets on the range, while completing the 15-kilometre race with a second-place time of 42:50.4 at the Otway Nordic Ski Centre.
“I was really happy with that one today,” said Arendz, who now has one dozen world championship medals in his career. “This is a race that you have to be clean in shooting and ski well.”
Athletes are pegged with a one minute penalty for every missed shot in the individual format.
“It was a really good race for me. I started well and had a great controlled pace throughout the race. Each lap I got stronger and faster. That was the best shooting I have had in a long time and hit everything on the range,” added Arendz.
It was the fourth medal of the 2019 world championships for the three-time Paralympian. Arendz also has a silver in the middle-distance cross-country ski race, along with bronze in both of his other two biathlon starts.
“I think this shows the consistency is there and I’m really happy with the shooting this week. I’ve had just one miss in the 50 shots that I’ve taken so I have to be happy with that,” added Arendz.
Canada’s flag bearer at the Closing Ceremony of the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games finished behind his top rival, Benjamin Daviet of France. Daviet clocked a golden time of 42:22.2 despite missing one shot in his second bout on the range.
Ukraine’s Grygorii Vovchynskyi was third at 44:26.1 (0+0+1+0).
Kyle Barber, of Lively, Ont., placed 11th at 1:01:37.9 (1+3+4+0).
One miss in her final stop at the range cost Canada’s Brittany Hudak her first medal in Prince George. The 25-year-old from Prince Albert, Sask., clocked a fourth-place time of 46:42.6 in the women’s 12.5-kilometre standing distance.
Hudak finished behind three women from Ukraine.
Liudmyla Liashenko shot clean to win the gold at 41:09.2. Oleksandra Kononova was second at 42:42.5 (0+1+1+0), while Yuliia Batenkova-Bauman stopped the clock at 45:46.2 (1+0+2+0) to win the bronze.
Derek Zaplotinsky, of Smokey Lake, Alta., was sixth in the men’s sit-skiing race. Coming off two top-five finishes in his previous races, Zaplotinsky finished with a time of 56:12.1 (0+0+1+1).
Ukraine’s Taras Rad won the sit-skiing race with a time of 51:57.8 (0+0+1+0).
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