THUNDER BAY – Local athletes swept the biathlon podium in Sunday’s junior boys’ pursuit race at the Ontario Winter Games.
For good measure, they also took fourth place.
Palmer Hunt, who competed last weekend in the cross-country event in Week 1 of the Games, finished the competition in 23:48.0 edging out his Big Thunder Nordic Ski club teammate Brock Balabuck by 43.5 seconds.
Lappe Nordic’s Griffin-Davis Abbink took third, and his teammate, Jake Vaillant, grabbed fourth.
Hunt, a soft-spoken 13-year-old student at Ecole Gron Morgan, said Sunday’s result was a far cry from Saturday’s when he had shooting issues in the mass start event and finished eighth out of 10 competitors.
“It feels pretty good,” Hunt said.
“Yesterday my gun was kind of broken, so it was good to get redemption today.”
Hunt has been taking part in biathlon for nearly two years, a sport that’s wildly popular in Europe, grabs the North American spotlight every four years when the Winter Olympics come along and has been practiced in Thunder Bay since at least 2008.
Hunt said he’s still learning the sport, but given the results, he appears to be a quick study.
“The strategy is to take it slow near the end so you can breath better for your targets, because every time you miss it’s 10 seconds in the penalty loop,” he said.
Skiers traverse the race course four times, stopping the first three times to aim and shoot, pellets in this case, before continuing on for another lap.
Hunt managed to build up enough of a lead that even when he missed all five targets on his final shooting attempt, he still handily won the race.
“I was a little bit worried, because I missed every one on the last lap, but I was able to keep going.”
Ottawa’s Evelyn Budzinski captured the junior girls’ race, winning a second biathlon gold medal in as many days.
Her time of 25:03.5 was 43.1 seconds faster than silver medalist Clara-Joy Bartlett of Kanata Nordic. Thunder Bay’s Emmi Puiras took third, 2:01.3 behind the leader.
“It feels awesome. I’m really happy to have been here and to have done really well,” the 13-year-old said.
She was introduced to the sport about a year-and-a-half ago and has fallen in love with it in the interim.
“One of the reasons I really like biathlon is I love the switch in between the whole physical part of it and kind of switching over to the mental part, calming down and shooting. I think it adds a really interesting component to the whole thing,” said Budzinski, who trains three times a week, ramping the schedule up a bit in recent weeks as the Games approached.
Hannah Guiney took gold in the senior girls’ race. Lolade Ogunmekan captured silver and Lake Superior Biathlon’s Olivia Stachow won bronze.
In the senior boys’ pursuit race, William Budzinski, Evelyn’s brother, won gold, though local athletes did take silver and bronze, second place going to Big Thunder’s Rudy Balabuck and third place won by teammate Kai Cameron.
