Fans of Biathlon have to think all the way back to Lillehammer in 1994 to get a taste of Canadian Olympic glory. That's when Myriam Bedard skied and shot her way to gold, which no North American has ever done before or since.

But you know what? Canada has reason for optimism again… Vernon B.C's Emma Lunder is gunning for a podium in the incredibly challenging sport. She started this world cup season with a bang in Sweden, and she's got her mental and physical game tuned up nicely in time for Beijing. The national team veteran and I sat down at the Canadian Sport Institute in Calgary.

It's Player's own Voice

I'm Anastasia Bucsis.

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Kids that are playing hockey, they look up to Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby. For a young gun biathlete, who do they look up to?

Emma Lunder: I guess in Canada, it would be like myself for women, and then Scott and Christian Gow for the men just being there, the old veterans on the team now.

Anastasia: That's exciting. How does that feel?.

Emma Lunder: It feels weird to say it out loud! But we, even within our team. It's kind of a joke like I'm a team mom or team grandma. Scott is the dad.

Anastasia: How old are you?

Emma Lunder: 30.

Anastasia: Come on, you're not a grandma.

Emma Lunder: I know and and we used to have older athletes. But in the past few years, you know, a lot of retirements. So, then there's a huge gap for me. It's like six years to the next. So there's a feels like, am I old?

Anastasia: No, I know. And it happens overnight. You're like, I'm the rookie. And then you're the veteran. Yeah. Who did you look up to growing up?

Emma Lunder: When I first got involved, I didn't really know much about biathlon. I, I was doing it from Sea Cadets, which is a totally different world.

Anastasia: Yeah. Like how? What? sea cadets is there skiing and shooting on a sailboat? What?

Emma Lunder: So in the cadet programme, they have different, basically things that you can try. And I had already kind of grown up cross-country skiing with my family just recreationally, and my brother started doing biathlon and we picked him up from a practise one day and the coach was like, Hey, Emma? Would you like to try shooting a rifle?

Anastasia: Hey, you could be good!

Emma Lunder: And you know, I shot a few shots and he kind of made a joke that I was already better than my brother, so I was like, Oh, now I have to do this.

Anastasia: Yeah. Like what helps you distinguish: OK, I want to do biathlon versus just cross-country.

Emma Lunder: Good question. Yeah, I know a lot of people kind of started out racing cross-country and then transition over. I didn't race cross-country. I grew up in northern Ontario and I think my parents were like, We have to find something to do during the winters to get us out of the house. So we took it up as a family and I never did anything competitive really it was all just fun skiing for fun, playing soccer, things like that.

But the shooting was this really interesting component. In cadets, a lot of those athletes had never skied before. So I already had a little bit of an advantage just knowing how to cross-country ski, and I had some success right away, which was pretty exciting. I'd never done anything and won a medal before. So I was like, Ooh, I like this. And then basically, yeah, just kind of kept climbing the ranks in cadets. And then I finally got invited to do some training camps and stuff with the BC team. And then basically made the full transition to just civilian biathlon.

Anastasia: Civilian biathlon, I love that.

Emma Lunder: Yeah Civilian biathlon, but in cadets you just call it biathlon. So I didn't know, I didn't know there was a World Cup circuit. I didn't know there were national team athletes. I was competitive enough, but then to see these older athletes, I was like, Hey, who are these people?

Anastasia: Hey, I want to compete with you? I think a lot of people, you know, when they watch the Olympics, though, they're like, That is such a cool sport. But how do you get into it? Do kids actually get into it or what is that age range look like? I'm assuming that we don't see five-year olds just shooting guns.

Emma Lunder: Yeah. And I would say there's seven of us on the national team right now. And we probably got into it six different ways. Between 8 and 10, you can do air rifle. That would be like joining the Canmore Nordic club and you know, you're kind of learning to ski, learning to shoot a little bit. And then I think it's when you're 12 or 13, you can finally shoot .22s and that's fun. It's way more fun to shoot a rifle.

Anastasia: Yeah,. You've said that you loved the shooting aspect. Dive into the mental aspect of that, please. How do you make a target that is really the size of a poppy seed seem larger, when your heart rate is probably 200? I'm assuming it's 200.

Emma Lunder: Yeah, so. So many years of just practise and training. But even to this day, the mental aspect, it's huge. Sometimes you feel just confident and good and you know you're going to hit the target and sometimes you come in and you're like, Have I ever shot before, like being nervous? Or if there's really tricky conditions like wind, um, or even just when it's really cold and your hands are cold. It's awful to be shooting with cold hands, so that definitely doesn't go away, that mental aspect.

And in the last few years, our team has done a really good job of…we have weekly meetings with our sports psychologist and that's, I'd never had that before. We'd have one on ones, but to have this kind of team atmosphere where everyone's on the same page and like, yeah, sharing their goals and sharing their fears and someone else saying "Oh, I'm doubting my shooting" and then another athlete being like, "Oh, I feel the exact same way. And this is kind of how I I overcome it."

So obviously, there's a lot of like physical training we do, shooting training, and then so many hours going into the mental side of things in the last few years.

Anastasia: Do you doubt you're shooting more than you doubt your skiing? Like what's more consistent? I said to Mark Arendz, were you good at Hunter when you were a kid? lt's a little asinine to say, but like, yeah, I mean: what's more nerve wracking?

Emma Lunder: I would say the shooting. Yeah, the skiing, it's for sure you're going to have days where you feel good and the days where you feel bad, but you can always just push yourself as much as you can, I think on the day. Whereas the shooting, it's like you can hit your first four shots and kind of have it in your head like, Oh, I'm doing really well, you get excited, you have a miss. Or you can miss your first shot and then you're hesitating to take the next ones. Or, you know, in some of the races, you have a really good idea what position you're in. and you kind of know, OK, if I hit all five, this could be a podium. And that just throws you off so hard …

Anastasia: Because the pressure mounts?.

Emma Lunder: Yeah, and then you do weird things in the range, like you're not relaxed, is probably the main thing. You end up, you know, your your mind's thinking about something it doesn't need to be when you're shooting.

Anastasia: Oh, what kind of athlete are you? Like, how would you describe your preparation style?

Emma Lunder: I would say I'm pretty serious. I really feel that kind of since 2018, I didn't I didn't necessarily decide to do another four years, but I was like, OK, the Olympics was awesome, and I want to see what else I can do. And I felt like there was a bit of a shift where just everything…I feel like way more committed to biathlon like that is definitely the priority right now.

And I would say having some of the younger guys on the team, it's really good because it keeps things fun. Yeah. But you know, like Christian and I could just go for the same run every single day. It's 90 minutes from the house or whatever, two hours from the house, and they're like, OK, we're going to drive somewhere. And I'm like, It takes an hour to drive there, you know, and to drive back. Is it worth it?

And then this summer, we ended up doing a really sweet run and they didn't tell me what was going on. But all of a sudden we came to a lake that had, there was still snow from last year, and they're like, Emma, we're boot skiing into the lake. I was like, Oh, no, I'm not doing that. Like, We're in the middle of a right now!

Anastasia: Yeah, yeah.

Emma Lunder: And we did, and it was awesome.

Anastasia: You just having fun?

Emma Lunder: Yeah. So I think, yeah, I would say, pretty serious and just dedicated to getting the work done, but I can still have fun with that.

Anastasia: I guess that's usually the quickest way to win, at least in my own experience, usually when I was having the most fun. Yeah, I was like, Oh, this hurts, but I'm enjoying it, you know?

Emma Lunder: Yeah, the enjoyment. I think that I think maybe that's a better word . I wouldn't keep doing this if I didn't enjoy it. Yeah, it's too hard.

Anastasia: Well, you've certainly had two-three amazing seasons. What do you attribute that to?

Emma Lunder: Yeah. Um, I think part of it for sure was going to the Olympics seeing the level. And for me, that was such a cool experience, just making it there. That was the goal. It was like I got to the Olympics and then…We've had some changes in the coaching staff. Right after Pyeongchang, we got this amazing shooting coach from Russia. And before we didn't have that, we kind of had a men's coach and a women's coach, whereas now we've transitioned to a shooting specific coach and then a skiing specific coach. You can get more of an expert in their field when you do it that way. So that's I think that's probably been huge for me.

Anastasia: Are Russians known for their shooting?

Emma Lunder: They are a very strong biathlon nation. They do have some excellent shooters. Maybe, you know, they're one of the top five nations that competes in biathlon and they always have good, good shooting percentages and they're fast. And that was the big thing with Pavel, was of course, he wants us to hit the targets, but he's been pushing our speed so much and we've seen just on the results sheet like you can kind of look at the analysis and it'll show you the shooting times, and consistently, now we have Canadians like in the top five, which we never had before.

Anastasia: That's very cool. Yeah. So how meticulous are you? I mean, are you thinking about February 2022, like every second of every day?

Emma Lunder: Not so much. For sure, I'm thinking about the season. But I think especially last year with how much uncertainty there was, I was so happy when we were finally on the plane going to Europe. And, you know, the first few weekends we didn't really know, like if things were going to get shut down or whatever. And I just felt so grateful to be there and then raced really well. Yeah. Um, and then kind of, you know, there was a few weekends where I felt like almost I was trying to protect that, and I tensed up a bit and then remembered: OK, that's not how I want to race. And again, got back to the enjoyment. So I think this year is I don't even know the date of our Olympic races.

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Anastasia: You talk about, of course, last season, COVID-19 sport was hit hard and I'm going to sound like a creep because I know one of your favourite quotes. You said: 'Smooth seas do not make for a good sailor.' What are some of the areas of adversity that you have faced that have made you a better sailor? And in this metaphor, let's talk about biathlon?

Emma Lunder: Yeah, I would say I've been pretty lucky in my career, honestly and in sport, it's just kind of, you know, I've had a few small injuries here and there, and that always, it's tough when it feels like training and racing kind of becomes your life.

As soon as you can't, it's like, Oh, what the heck? And I really never had anything serious enough where it was like, you know, months off or anything. But I think probably in the last few years, I've just had more. Something upper body, something lower body and it feels like I haven't really just been completely healthy.

So again, last season was a huge step in the right direction, and I was really, really happy with how it went. But,for sure, I think I almost have that question in the back of my head like, how could this be going if I wasn't rehabbing a shoulder injury. if I wasn't putting all this energy into, like finding specialists and physios and going, doing all the rehab? Um, so I think, yeah, probably, probably just those little niggling injuries…

Anastasia: Well, your thumb! So what's a thumb injury? Aside from carpal tunnel… or is it carpal tunnel? I don't know.

Emma Lunder: This was, yeah, this was years ago, and I just fell while I was skiing and and kind of tore a ligament in there. So I think that was 2015. Um, it was my it was my right hand, which is more important for shooting of course.

Anastasia: Of course. And writing, are you left handed or what?

Emma Lunder: No, I'm right handed. I wasn't doing a lot of writing, so I didn't care about that. But yeah, I have kind of this little custom made splint, that I brought my rifle into the hospital and they fit it. So then I would be able to shoot with it on! So luckily that one, as long as I don't fall on my thumb, it's fine.

Anastasia: Well, what? How do you hold the pole then with …?

Emma Lunder: It was, I guess it was just around my thumb and then kind of my hand. And so it was enough space that I could get my ski pole into my hand normally. And it was like painful. But I was just I figured, Well, I was able to ski.

Anastasia: And you could shoot, it's fine?

Emma Lunder: Yeah, it was a little bit clunky, but honestly, this was a best case scenario. It's kind of a common injury. They call it skiers' thumb.

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Anastasia: What kind of conditions are your favourite to ski in ?

Emma Lunder: For just training? It's so nice to have Hard, firm packed down tracks, but for racing, everyone can ski fast on that. So I prefer a little bit softer and like a little bit more chewed up, which we get quite a bit in Europe. I's just warmer. But that seems to throw a lot of people off their game. They're like " Oh, it's soft, it's not good." And I'm more: OK, let's do this.

Anastasia: Isn't that funny how obsessed you get with snow or race? Like wherever you play… Is there a like an ideal body type for biathlon?

Emma Lunder: I would say not really. And you know, if you watch a World Cup race, you see that the top of the podium could be a six foot tall woman or five foot two. Yeah, you really see everything.

I think just strictly cross-country, there's maybe more narrow sense of the ideal or what is perceived as the ideal. But the shooting is such a huge piece in biathlon, and you can just be a strong skier no matter what for your body type.

Anastasia: Yeah, it's just power to weight.

Emma Lunder: You know, I I've had team-mates who were like six feet tall and they would destroy me in intervals, and I had team-mates that are my size and we're both, you know, super fast. So yeah, you definitely see a pretty big range in biathlon.

Anastasia: What are some of the more special races that you can remember

Emma Lunder: Oh. For sure, the most special feeling race format that I've done in recent years is the single mixed relay, so that's just one woman and one man. And I never did it for years because my shooting just was not there. It's pretty shooting heavy. And a couple of years ago, it got to do my first one. I was like, Oh, I don't think I'm going to be good at this, and I really, really enjoyed it. It's just fast paced and yeah, lots of shooting. And the last two years, I've got to do pretty much every one with Christian.

Which has been so nice. Because there's not a whole lot of relays where we would get to be together. Like there is a mixed relay, which is two men and two women. But you can kind of …I just never was the second woman, so I wasn't getting to do them ever. Yeah. So, yeah. Last or two seasons ago, we were having an amazing race and he kind of tagged me for the last bit and we were like still within podium contention. And we finished fourth.

Anastasia: Which is so exciting, but it's also like, Oh gosh.

Emma Lunder: And yeah, for sure. Part of it was a tactical error on my part in the skiing. I was just so excited and I kind of took the lead from the girl and then she…

Anastasia: she just draughted you?

Emma Lunder: Yeah, and she just destroyed me. Which I should have known. And Christian was on the sidelines yelling at me, 'Don't lead her!', but I couldn't hear it. And we got to do it again last year at World Championships together and had another…You know, it's so nice when both of us can put a good race together on the same day.

And then, probably my first top 10.

Anastasia: That was pretty amazing, yeah.

Emma Lunder: It's just like. I I didn't kind of go into this sport being like, I want to be an Olympic champion. I was like, Oh, this is cool, I'm still enjoying it. You know, I'm doing well. So kind of, I guess, until I had a top ten, I maybe didn't, think that I was capable of it, and then I was like, Well, if I can get a top 10, what the heck?

Anastasia: Yeah. Only nine more positions to go up!

Emma Lunder: Exactly, exactly. So yeah, probably my first top 10…and then further back there was an IBU cup in Canmore, and I was not doing super well that season and I wasn't that motivated. And it was kind of around the time of my thumb, and I thought, Oh, maybe this is the last year and I'll go to school or, kind of just make a change. And I got a podium at the Canmore IBU Cup.

Anastasia: Do you think it was because you were like, 'Mehh, this might be it?'

Emma Lunder: I was my first time ever hitting 10 (targets) in a race, and it's like. And my mum was there and you know, my club coaches and all the people who I'd kind of worked my way up through the system being a part of their team, so that that was like a really, really special one, too.

Anastasia: There is a lot of buzz around biathlon right now. I mean, we just talked to Beckie Scott and I said, I am connecting with Emma Lunder and her eyes just lit up and she's like, "She's awesome. She's killing it. Like, so excited." What is so special about this team?

Emma Lunder: It's it's hard to answer that, honestly, because probably if you looked on paper, it'd be like, OK, yeah, got, you know, seven athletes, some from B.C. some from Alberta, some from the Yukon. But I think it's been, we've had a few years together now and…. It's just a very like-minded group, but also individual enough, everyone brings something a little bit different to the table.

But we all just get along so well, which is really, I think rare. Usually you have a little bit of like conflict or just, you know, differences in personalities and everything. And we do have differences in personalities, but it seems to mesh. And I think I think it's been a big, um, kind of big push from the coaches and our sports psych too. just to see how important it is. Yes, we are an individual sport. But we're training together every single day. And we live together in Europe for four months of a year. Like, you know, we go in November, we come back the end of March and sometimes I'm like, OK, it'll be nice to have a break. And then I get home and I'm like, I miss my team.

Anastasia: Yeah. You get home and you're like, I have to make my own food?

Emma Lunder: I know. It's the worst.

Anastasia: Four months in Europe, that's long, though. Do you guys just play a lot of Settlers of Catan or what do you do there?

Emma Lunder: We usually, except last year, it was pretty strict from the IBU, which is the World Cup whatever. And then we within Biathlon Canada had kind of even stricter protocols. So you lived with your roommate, basically, and you sat with your roommate at meals.

Anastasia: If you got through that with just one person for four months. Yeah, you guys are close.

Emma Lunder: Yes! And at the end, we, you know, once we were feeling like World Champs had finished, we played a bit more cards and things like that. But we do, we really like games, stuff like that. We'll go sledding. Just doing normal people things in between the races.

Anastasia: Civilian things. I like that civilian biathlete. Yeah. You mentioned your, your coaches and your sports psychs. Justin Wadsworth is a coach. Yeah, he obviously had his moment in that was Sochi. Yeah, and just guided with integrity, of course. Married to Beckie Scott, who has all the integrity in the world. Is that a real value of this team?

Emma Lunder: Yeah, I would say so. And I think maybe the biggest thing with Justin is he expects so much out of us. And you know, he kind of expects this 24 hour athlete, but he also gives 110 percent every single day to the team, so it doesn't feel like that much. When you have your coach and you feel that he's as committed as you are to the team's pursuit of excellence. It's kind of easy to make the right decisions and do what you need to do. And that's not, you know, we still have fun.

Anastasia: 24 hour athlete, that's tough, though at times, too!.

Emma Lunder: Yeah, maybe more just of like keeping in mind what the goals are. Yeah. And OK, should we go do some like dangerous mountain biking like jumps like the young guys on our team always want to?

Anastasia: Or boot skiing into the…?

Emma Lunder: Yeah, I think but then on our rest weeks, he's like: Take it off, don't worry about, don't fill in your training plan, take a full break? Um, so yeah, I would say like, you know, we come to the training and everyone's ready to go and prepared for the day and like that every single day of training. No one's ever late. It's just a pretty nice culture to feel like everyone's respectful, but also super, super dedicated. But then to have downtime to, you know, recuperate.

Anastasia: So you can have a beer and be normal?

Emma Lunder: Yes. oh god. Yes.

Anastasia: phew, I got to look out for you. So what's the goal for Beijing?

Emma Lunder: Podium.

Anastasia: Good for you. That's very exciting,

Emma Lunder: Yeah It feels weird to say that. I've told, you know, a few people, the goal. But last year, you know, on the World Cup, there were a handful of opportunities where it could have been. And of course, you can always say that,

Anastasia: But you kind of know.

Emma Lunder: And yeah, I just I'm like, OK, it is. It's possible. And in this sport, anything can happen, and no one's competed in Beijing before. It's a totally new venue. No one's had a chance to ski there. Everyone's kind of going in blind. Yeah, but I like it. I like that!

Anastasia: That's wonderful. Smooth seas do not make for a good sailor. I'm super excited to watch you do your thing in Beijing.

Emma Lunder: With our poles!

Anastasia: Yeah, With your poles. Peace.

[music begins]

Emma and I caught up in Calgary…

There's a video version of this chat at CBC sports youtube channel.

Social media? Hashtag players own voice...

My handle is Anastasure .

Olivia Pasquarelli edits our audio.

Adam Blinov wrote our theme music.

David Giddens is our producer.

Players Own Voice podcast is a cbc sports production.

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