Darcie and Damika Morton have been continuing their strong training in Sweden at their base in Sveg. Biathlon is extremely popular in Sweden and the level at Clubs is high and both girls have been taking part in local events and time-trials.

Damika was part of a mass-start event in her age group (U14’s), skiing 5 loops of 1.3km. Damika won the event with 5 penalties, which was also the equal-best shooting of her event.

Darcie finished 2^nd in the open event, shooting (2,0,0,1) which was equal best. Darcie was 30secs behind the 1^st placegetter in ski-time.

In more recent time-trial events, both girls took part in a 6km (4x1.5km loops) held by the Sveg Skigymnasium. The time-trial included both XC skiers and biathletes aged between 15yrs and 20yrs. Damika came 2^nd in her time-trial with 2 penalties. The 1^st finishing female was a couple of years older than Damika.

In her time-trial, Darcie skied a fast last lap moving from 5secs down after lap 3 to 1st position. Both girls are very appreciate of Sveg coaches Erik Albinder and Anna Carin Zidek for supporting their participation.  

In January, Darcie will take part in her first IBU events for the 2020-21 season. These are IBU Cup events and being held at Arber in Germany. These two IBU Cups will be Darcie’s first real racing for 2020-21, since arriving in Europe at the end of October. It will be a “see how I go” feeling for Darcie, not having raced at this level since March 2020.

For Darcie, her main focus this season will be on Youth/Junior World Championships which are being held in Austria at the end of February, as this is her last year as a Junior. However, Darcie squeezed in a World Championships qualification result in March last year and will be looking to see if she can build on that form and obtain a further World Championships qualifier so she has the option of attending World Championships in early Feb 2021.