The team representing
New Brunswick
made a little bit of history on Sunday,
March 29 at the North American and Canadian Biathlon Championship 2009 in Val
Cartier,
Quebec
.
The Senior Mixed Team won a Bronze Medal in the Relay Competition and that is
the first national competition medal ever won by athletes representing the
Province in biathlon. Miriam Wierzchoslawska (who competes for the newly formed
Miramichi Biathlon Club), Kevin Heppell
and Laurent Levesque (both with Les Aventuriers in Charlo) combined their
strong skiing and shooting skills to win the bronze and cap a strong several
days of competition for the team.
Patrick Côté, national team
member, Bernard Wierzchoslawski and the Boissonnault brothers, Martin and
Zacharie were the other four members of the New Brunswick Team. Patrick
finished 8th in the individual and 10th in the sprint competitions in the men
category. The six younger athletes
competed in the Senior Boys/Girls (15-16) category for three competitions in
the four days of the event. In addition
to the medal performance on Sunday, Heppell (10th), Levesque (11th) and Martin
Boissonnault (19th) all had top twenty results in the Individual Competition on
Thursday in the highly competitive Senior Boys field. There were over forty entrants in this one
group.
On Saturday, Heppell and
Miriam Wierzchoslawska had performances in the 85% range - a basic benchmark
for high performance results. In all, the Team turned in a "best ever for
New Brunswick
"
performance at the National Competitions
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