Canmore, Alberta, Canada, January 31, 2009.
Addie Byrne of Bovey, MN placed sixth in the Youth Women 6 km Sprint competition today. Teammate Grace Boutot of Fort Kent, ME finished in 9th place. Both women had one penalty in the ten shot race.

Addie Byrne left the range after prone with one penalty in 23rd place 54 seconds off the leader. But undeterred she kept with her race plan coming into standing just over a minute out of first. Her clean shooting moved her up to ninth after standing 36 seconds out of first. With just 2 km to go Byrne put the hammer down making up 7 seconds on the Russian winner Olga Galich and moving up to sixth place in at time 20:01.2 just 29.8 seconds out of the first place tie between Olga Galich/RUS and Individual gold medalist Yan Zhang/CHN. Byrne is well positioned for the Pursuit competition on Sunday, the start of which is based on the athletes time back in the Sprint competition.

Speaking after the race today Byrne said, “Sixth is not quite, what I wanted. I really wanted a medal, but I have two more races left.” She has trained in Canmore with several US athletes for more than two weeks. “I knew I could be top 10. I spent a lot of time on this course and worked a lot on the areas that were troubling me. I can visualize it in my sleep.”
Photos from Judy Greer