Vernon’s Emma Lunder is off to the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Lunder, 26, was named to the roster of the Canadian biathlon team Wednesday morning in Toronto.
Lunder says on her Olympic bio she moved to Canmore to further her biathlon training after her high performance team in Squamish lost its funding and coach following the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
She joined a local club and qualified for her first international competition, the 2010 Youth World Championships, where she felt immense pride in wearing the maple leaf for the first time. She went on to compete at the 2011 and 2012 Junior World Championships. She also represented Alberta at the 2011 Canada Winter Games, winning silver in the relay and finishing fourth in the sprint.
Named to the national team in 2014, Lunder had a career breakthrough at the IBU Cup in Canmore in February 2015 when she finished second in the sprint for her first international podium in front of family and friends.
Lunder encountered some injury troubles just before the 2015 team trials when she fell and tore a tendon and chipped a small bone in her thumb. She spent the entire racing season in a thumb cast, altering her rifle to fit it around the splint and adjusting her poling technique. A fall in a race in 2016 caused a second similar tear, but after a few weeks of rest she was able to continue the season.
After two seasons of what she calls lackluster racing, Lunder posted her best World Cup result in January 2017 when she finished 21st in the 15km individual in Antholz, Italy after hitting 19 of the 20 targets. She also made her world championship debut in 2017. She bettered her career-best World Cup result in December 2017 when she finished 18th in the 10km pursuit in Annecy, France.
Lunder started cross-country skiing recreationally at age seven, and was introduced to biathlon through Sea Cadets in 2006. She always eats oatmeal for breakfast on race day and, during the season, will designate one pair of earrings as her race earrings.
Away from the biathlon course, Lunder always has a book on the go and sometimes relaxes by colouring in adult colouring books.
Two-time Olympians Rosanna Crawford and Brendan Green headline Canada’s biathlon team for next month’s Pyeongchang Games.
Crawford and Green were part of the quartet that finished 11th in the mixed relay at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Green was also seventh in the men’s relay in a foursome that included 2018 Olympic teammate Nathan Smith, while Crawford was on the team that wound up eighth in the women’s relay.
Green and Smith, along with brothers Christian and Scott Gow, captured Canada’s first-ever relay medal at the world championships with a bronze in 2016.
Smith, who missed most of last season due to illness, became the first Canadian male biathlete to win a world championship medal in 2015 when he grabbed silver in the 10-kilometre sprint.
Crawford, meanwhile, picked up the first World Cup medal of her career last week in Germany with a bronze in the 15-kilometre individual race.
Also heading to South Korea next month as part of Canada’s 10-member squad are Lunder, Sarah Beaudry, Macx Davies, Julia Ransom and Megan Tandy.
The biathlon competition gets going Feb. 10.