GRP at Biathlon NorAm Championships

Michael Gibson racing in Hinton, Alberta, Canada at North American Biathlon Championships

Last Updated: 17.Mar.2015

This past week was another busy one for GRP biathletes competing in both North America and Europe. On this side of the pond, two newcomers to biathlon, Emily Dreissigacker and Alex Howe, joined seasoned biathletes Ethan Dreissigacker and Mike Gibson at Canadian Nationals/North American Championships in Hinton, Alberta. 

Canadian National Championships kicked off last Wednesday with a sprint. Ethan Dreissigacker was the GRP’s top performer in the men’s 10k event, taking 5th place in the fifteen-person field, with clean shooting. Right behind him was Alex Howe, who paired a fast ski time with an impressive rookie shooting performance of 70% hits to finish 6th. Mike Gibson suffered five penalties and was 11th. In the women’s 7.5k sprint, Emily Dreissigacker got off to an excellent start with four prone hits, and then missed four in standing to finish 5th out of five, behind four experienced Canadian biathletes. 

In Thursday's pursuit, Emily boasted her own 70% shooting performance and once again finished 5th. On the men's side, Ethan repeated as the team's top finisher, taking 5th place once again with just three misses, all from the first standing stage. Mike Gibson improved upon his sprint finish, moving up to 8th place with five misses. Alex skied ten penalty laps, but did so at a blistering speed and came in just thirty seconds behind Mike in 9th place.

Ethan stayed consistent in Saturday's mass start, taking 5th place for the third day in a row, with five misses. After about a two-minute gap, Mike was the next finisher to cross the line in 6th place with eight misses. Another minute after that, Alex finished in 9th with ten misses. The women's field expanded to seven racers in the mass start, and despite thirteen penalties, Emily finished 6th, ahead of a Canadian who had seven fewer penalties. 

The final event of the Canadian Nationals/NorAm Championships was a three-person mixed-gender relay, in which Ethan, Emily and Mike represented the GRP, in that order. Ethan started out with a strong leg in which he used a single spare in standing. Older sister Emily managed to stay out of the penalty loop in prone and had a single penalty in standing, to hand off to Mike in 5th place. Mike had one penalty lap in prone, and then to add insult to injury, fell and broke the butt plate of his rifle while skiing the lap. He managed to hit one target in standing, but had to ski four penalty laps. Luckily there was a great enough buffer to keep the GRP team in 5th place.

Ethan now returns home to attend the spring term at Dartmouth College, while Emily and Alex head to cross-country skiing SuperTour finals in Sun Valley, ID, and Mike joins Clare Egan in Truckee, CA for US Biathlon Nationals.