Darcie Morton has finished her 2020/21 international session strongly in the IBU Cup final in Obertilliach, Austria. Morton achieved a further two Olympic and World Cup qualifying results after unfortunately having to miss both World Championships and World Junior Championships.

Morton was forced to withdraw from the World Junior Championships after testing positive to COVID19 in her PCR test to enter the “competition bubble” Although asymptomatic and with a further 3 negative PCR results immediately following, Morton was required by Austrian regulations to quarantine for 10 days.

Darcie exclaimed, ‘I was absolutely devasted. It was my last World Junior Championship and my peak goal for the season. The IBU and I believe it was a false positive but there was nothing we could as by law I had to quarantine.’

Upon coming out of quarantine and with only 5 days to preparation after 10days of inaction, Morton was able to achieve two great results which were both Olympic and World Cup qualifying results.

IBU Cup Short Individual: 62^nd (1,2,0,1) 144 IBU pts

IBU Cup Sprint: 74^th (1,1) 122 IBU pts

Morton commented, ‘It was just fantastic to be out of quarantine and back skiing and shooting. I was really happy with my ski speed. It was great to have a couple of solid races and I can take confidence away from these competitions that I can take the next step to World Cup.’

The results were impressive given Morton’s quarantine ordeal, which closely followed her departure from the World Senior Championships in Pokljuka, Slovenia, two days before the Women’s Sprint due to personal reasons.

After only being able to contest three IBU Cups over the 2020-21 season, Morton has finished the season as one of two top ranked biathletes for Australia and will be very close to achieving a World Cup Wild Card start for Australia in Trimester 1, 2021/22.