Romeo Champagne medaled twice at the Canadian Nationals recently, winning a gold in the Junior Men’s 12.5 km pursuit and a bronze in the Junior 7.5 km mixed relay.

For Champagne, it was quite the adventure just to get there.

“It was quite the journey, for sure. It was a 50-hour travel day.”

Champagne came from Kazakstan through Frankfurt, Germany.

“(We) missed our connecting flight, so got rerouted to Portugal.”

From there, Champagne and his Canadian teammates flew to Montreal. They spent the night in Montreal, then flew to Valcartier, QC., where the races took place March 13-19.

Champagne’s adventure didn’t end when he finally reached Quebec.

“The first two races there, I didn’t have any of my equipment. It was still somewhere between Kazakstan and Quebec. The first race, I didn’t even have my own rifle, which made it quite challenging.

“I came into the race with pretty low expectations so it made it pretty fun, just having no stress, go out there and see what you can do and I think that set the tone for the week, to just really enjoy the experience and have fun.”

Champagne shot clean the first bout (five targets) in the race, a sprint.

“I was pretty proud of that.

“I wasn’t very competitive for that race but that definitely put me in a good position for the next day and I got my rifle the night before the pursuit, so I was able to put it all back together just in time for the race.”

Champagne started the pursuit well back in the field due to his slower sprint. In pursuit, the first-place finisher in the sprint starts first. The rest of the athletes start behind in five second intervals.

“Definitely not a great thing to see all your competitors cruising around the course while you’re still waiting to start. But then had a good first shooting, hit four targets and came out at the same time as a couple people who had more targets than me, so that was a good way to start the race,” recalled Champagne.

“And then the second shooting I cleaned it, which was a really nice feeling and (I) managed to catch and pass a couple more people with that, so that was a great way to start the race, with a smile on my face and once you’re having good feelings like that, it’s pretty easy to keep the good race going.”

Penalty laps are 150 metres for each target missed. According to Champagne, they take about 23 seconds each.

“The last shooting, I hit four, and the guy behind me, Will (Moineau), he also hit four and he was about 20 seconds behind me. I came out of the range and did my penalty loop and saw him in the penalty loop at the same time as me, so I knew that he was going to be trying to hunt me down on the last lap, so made it for a pretty exciting finish. Really battled it out. He was really working and I ended up sneaking away with it by just under two seconds.”

Champagne also won a bronze in the mixed relay with Isla Hupe.

“That was a really fun relay. Definitely came into it excited to race with a Yukon race suit again. It was super fun to scavenge around and find some other athletes that had spare pieces of clothing that I could put on.

“I trained a lot with Isla when I was in high school so it was fun to be able to team up and represent the Yukon.”

Each racer does two laps in the nine-lap relay. In this case, Champagne went second, so finished with three laps. Champagne said the end of the race was a “heartbreaker. I came out of the range. Again, Will was chasing me. There’s a big climb halfway through the course. He caught up to me on that. I managed to put another big gap in front of him coming into the – there’s a big downhill section and I think I had about eight seconds on him coming into the downhill and I just lost my focus and slipped down on some ice and he came screaming by me and there wasn’t enough track to catch back up before the finish line.”

Moineau, from Quebec, captured second ahead of Champagne.

As for what he attributes his success to, Champagne said, “I definitely think it’s thanks to Biathlon Yukon, the biathlon community in Whitehorse. There’s a lot of support. It’s not a cheap sport and I’m also doing university full-time while I’m pursuing biathlon. You definitely need that community to keep on track.

“I went to Kazakstan and that’s definitely a life dream to represent Canada in the World Junior Championships and I couldn’t have done it without the help of Yukoners.”

Needless to say, Champagne’s success had a positive influence on the Yukon Nationals team.

“It’s super-exciting to be able to get a medal at Nationals and be a national champion.

“It felt good to be someone who could help lead the next generation of athletes in the right direction and offer some guidance.

“I really hope that other athletes realize that it’s possible to do university while pursuing high-level sport. Both can go hand in hand and you can still have some success.”

Up next for Champagne is a break from biathlon. He may spend this summer the same as the last, working as a lifeguard at the Canada Games Centre.

“It’s a great job for training, so I’ll hopefully be doing something like that this summer.

Champagne is looking forward to being back home in Whitehorse.

“It’s nice to give the brain a break from the big city of Calgary and be able to go back to my home friends and family.”