Athlete Profile: Rosanna Crawford
While flicking on the tube is usually the last thing I do to relax, I’m always up for a little Rick Mercer Report on a Friday night. At the end of a busy week, there’s nothing better than some good laughs to wind down and ease into weekend mode. And it’s always kind of cool when he spotlights athletes we know.
On a recent episode, Rick went out to Canmore, Alberta, Canada, home of the Canmore Nordic Ski Club, where he hung out with Rosanna Crawford (younger sister of PN Olympic athlete Chandra Crawford) to learn a thing or two about what it take to be a biathlete. He discovered that being a biathlete is a little like being James Bond: you have to endure an adrenaline-fuelled, outdoorsy getaway from the bad guys, and then knock off a few perfect shots along the way. It’s not surprising, then, that the event evolved from Norwegian military-style exercises.
Biathlon comes naturally to Rosanna, who grew up just a few minutes from the Canmore Nordic Ski Centre. She’s been involved with biathlon since she was 10. Now at 20, she’s been a member of the Canadian National Biathlon team for three years, and she’s the 2006 Canadian National champion.
One of Rosanna’s biggest inspirations is her big sister Chandra. Both sisters got their start in biathlon, and just like Chandra, Rosanna’s faced some physical challenges in the season leading up to the 2010 games.
Although Mercer cracked wise about the athletes having “hearts the size of basketballs”, it turns out that Rosanna’s heart health was no joke. She was recently diagnosed with atrial tachycardia, a condition that left her battling symptoms of low energy, pain in her limbs, and a heart rate that would race up to 250 beats per minute. Normally the sino-atrial (SA) node initiates the electrical impulse that sets the pace for the heartbeat, but in Rosanna’s case, the impulse was coming from the nerve, causing her heart rate to speed up. Though AT isn’t associated with a high rate of mortality, it was definitely limiting Rosanna’s ability to perform at her best. This past December, Rosanna underwent a procedure to cauterize the nerve and was back on the race circuit just 6 weeks later.
And boy, was she back with a vengeance: top 10 finishes in both the 7.5 km sprint (7th) and 4×6 relay (6th) races, and hit rate of 90% overall at European Championships in Russia this past February. With a strong finish to the season, Rosanna hopes to follow in her big sister’s skis and be “2010 sisters” with Chandra next winter at the Vancouver Olympics.
To get there, Rosanna and her teammates have found a creative way to raise awareness and funding for their team. Compared to biathletes from other countries, the women of the Canadian biathlon are significantly underfunded and lack national sponsorship. So they bared all for a calendar to raise enough money to get ready for the Olympics. They hope that this tactic will bring in enough money to support their dreams for 2010, and they also want to encourage young women to feel empowered to achieve healthy and athletic bodies.
The success of their 2009 calendar, Bold Beautiful Biathlon, has far exceeded their expectations and brightened their hopes for a solid performance in Vancouver next year. Looks like they didn’t need Rick Mercer’s photo in the buff to help them out this time around… but maybe he’ll make the 2010 version.