Andraya Johnston, 17  and Brandon Benette, 15 from Timmins, were among the 20 competitors chosen from Ontario to represent their province at the National Biathlon Championship that is currently taking place in Valcartier Québec, and are quite excited to be a part of the tournament.

“It’s a pretty good feeling, once we got here it kind of felt like we were in the big leagues. It’s an honour to be representing our community out here. It doesn’t happen often to come at a national level being from a small city so, I think it’s a good opportunity for us and we want to represent the community as best as we can.” -Said Benette

“I’m pretty pumped,  it’s really cool to be at such a big competition. It’s great competition and there’s a lot of great skiers.” Said Johnston

There’s a lot of hard work that goes into being able to compete in the Biathlon and it’s not as easy as you would think.

“We do a lot of training, there’s a lot that goes into it. We are training pretty much all year round, so when there isn’t snow we’re running and shooting and when the snow comes, we are on the tracks as soon as possible.” -Said Johnston

Both Skiers said their first events didn’t go too well but, lucky for them there’s still four days left of competing to do. They also went on to add that, they are hoping for better results and were optimistic that they’ll be able to do better in their upcoming races.

Filed under: Local News