The closest any Canadian Paralympic biathlete came to reaching the podium on Saturday (March 13) was sixth place, but Olympic and Paralympic athlete Brian McKeever wasn't fazed.

“This equals our best first biathlon performance at the Olympics. At Salt Lake we were sixth and in Torino we were eighth, so we’re there,” said McKeever, a visually impaired biathlete who skis with his brother Robin as a guide.

At Whistler Paralympic Park, McKeever finished sixth place, one minute, nine seconds behind gold-medal winner Vitaliy Lukynenko of Ukraine. Russia’s Nikolay Polukhin finished second nearly 15 seconds behind Lukyanenko and bronze went to Belarussian visually impaired biathlete Vasili Shaptsiaboi.

Neither McKeever brother felt entirely healthy, since they both had the flu this past week, but Brian said he was optimistic about the races scheduled later on in the Games. On Monday (March 15), in fact, he and his brother captured gold in the men’s 20-kilometre cross-country ski race — the first Paralympic gold ever won by a Canadian on home soil.

“I think we prove we can still ski despite the fact that we’re not 100 per cent so I think as our health improves we’ll be able to mount a pretty good challenge in the cross country races,” Brian McKeever said after Saturday’s biathlon event.

McKeever is also depending on racing on a course he’s had success on previously and the support of the Canadian crowds.

“Certainly the crowds are big and everybody’s here. That’s important I think, to feel that support. It’s a great crowd — they’re cheering for everybody, so that’s also a lot of fun.”

Canadian women’s visually impaired athlete Robbi Weldon also finished in sixth place with a time of 20:34.07, nearly eight minutes behind Germany's Verena Bentele who finished first. Russian biathletes Liubov Vasilyeva and Mikhalina Lysova finished second and third, respectively.

Calgary-based Mark Arendz finished in seventh during the three-kilometre standing classification qualification round but missed four shots in the final, causing Arendz to cross the finish line one minute behind the Russian gold medal winner Kirill Mikhaylov. Norway's Nils-Erik Ulset won silver while Ukraine's Grygorii Vovchynskyi took home the bronze.

Missing a total of two shots, Jody Barber of Smithers finished the women’s standing three-kilometre qualification round in ninth place. Barber placed 10th in the final round, missing only one shot.

Canadian Courtney Knight didn’t make it to the women’s visually impaired finals since she placed ninth out of 11 competitors. Canadian Margarita Gorbounova finished 11th in the same category.

Knight said she was happy with her race despite taking a tumble during the race.

“I think the way we executed our race plan went really well other than the one mishap. I had a little wipeout but I still made up time on the racer in front of me on the range, which is great to know that I’m shooting faster. It doesn’t matter where we finish in the rankings. I’m happy with how we raced and that’s all you can hope for.”

Men's visually impaired biathlon skier Alexei Novikov did not advance as he didn’t shoot well, resulting in a finishing time of 13:31.20.

“It was hard, as always. I'm very exhausted. A good thing it's over,” said the Ottawa– based Novikov.

“The second loop, it was the hardest and probably we took it too hard because after that my shooting wasn’t that good but all in all I’m very happy that the first race is over and it’s under our belt.”

Novikov's guide Jaime Stirling said it’s difficult to control your heart rate on a short track.

“Because of the shooting involved, you have to be able to keep your heart rate down,” Stirling said.

“With the longer biathlon it’s not as hard… but with the sprints you’ve got such little time to recover before the shooting range.”

Langley’s Lou Gibson finished near the bottom during the men's 2.4-kilometre sitting qualification round, missing five shots in total and taking a bit of a spill on a turn in the course.

“Nothing to complain about. It was a little bit of a sprint — I was going all out trying to qualify,” said the 45-year-old sit-skier.

“I'm not in the top 12 because I missed a little too much. I needed things to be a little more clean, otherwise it would have been closer.”