Canadian Mark Arendz wanted to set the tone with his first race of the 2024 Para Biathlon World Championships.
Competition kicked off at the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club with the 7.5 km races for the sitting, standing, and vision impaired categories this morning.
Arendz started his week with a gold, finishing with a time of 22:12.1, 7.5 seconds faster than the next finisher.
“There was a lot of expectations on myself for this race,” he said.
“There was a lot of nerves, anxiety, about it, but I knew what I had to do, and that kind of allowed me to stay in those moments and fight for it.”
“It wasn’t the most pleasant final lap, just trying to push time, but it was making up a lot of time on the others,” he continued.
“Really happy with the shape there and hopefully that sets up for the rest of the week.”
Arendz served as Canada’s Flag Bearer during last night’s (Tuesday) opening ceremony.
He said it was exciting to win on home soil.
“Maybe that was one of the biggest things for me, was not to start off like it did at the World Championships in 2019,” he said.
“I have the win, I know I’m capable of it, and now it’s just continuing that throughout the week and into next as well.”
Arendz is the skier to beat in Prince George this week, as he swept gold in the 7.5 km, 10 km, and sprint pursuit at a World Cup event in Italy last month.
“I also, from that, took confidence that I’ve done it multiple times this year, whether it was in Canmore at local races or on the world stage,” he said.
“I knew I could do it, it was just repeating that and managing the extra things that I keep adding onto myself, being at home and knowing that I am the one to be looking at and the guys are going to be trying to meet that standard.”
It was a cold start to the day at Otway, but it continued to warm up throughout the day.
Competition will continue tomorrow with the 12.5 kilometre individual events.
Full results from today’s events can be found here.