Former CU women’s All-American Nordic skier Joanne Reid placed 22nd with just one penalty in Thursday’s women’s biathlon 15-kilometer individual race at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.
It was a major rebound for Reid from the 7.5 km sprint race, her first Olympic event. In that event, Reid missed seven of 10 targets on the range. Reid finished second-to last among a field of 87 racers in the sprint to start her 2018 Games. In her second race, she posted a career-best finish for any of her World Cup or Olympic races.
Reid told U.S. Biathlon, “There was a lot less wind today and it’s a lot warmer which makes it easier on the hands for shooting. I’ve actually been shooting really well in practice so I thought if I can just execute that when I came in for each bout, I had a chance at doing fairly well.”
Reid wasn’t originally scheduled to participate in the race, but was added to the start list after teammate Maddie Phaneuf woke up Thursday morning with a sore throat, according to U.S. Biathlon.
“I’m really happy that I had a good race just because I took Maddie’s spot here and I didn’t want to go out there and have a bad day,” said Reid. “She’s really disappointed that she didn’t get to race, so this one’s for her.”
Reid is the daughter of Olympian Beth Heiden and niece of Eric Heiden. She earned five first-team and two second-team All-America honors in her collegiate career, was the 2013 RMISA Most Valuable Skier for Nordic and named to the 2013 National Collegiate All-Academic Ski Team.
The next scheduled women’s biathlon event is the 12.5km mass start (Feb. 17). The U.S. presently does not have any entries listed for that event.
