From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.
Note: This is part of an occasional series of heart-healthy and fitness-ready recipes for skiers. The following was submitted by Olympic biathlete Tracy Barnes, who co-wrote the Twin Biathletes’ Cookbook with her sister, Lanny. For more on the Colorado-based Barnes twins or to buy their book, visit their blog, twinbiathletes.com. Have a favorite recipe of your own? Share it with us by emailing alex@fasterskier.com.
It’s Friday and you know what that means! Treats for all the hard work you’ve done all week and calories you’ll burn this weekend — ideally. Anyway, here’s a killer recipe for “To Die For Homemade Brownies” with dark chocolate chips and walnuts. Who needs the box when you can make the real thing?
To Die For Homemade Brownies
You need:
2 large eggs
6 tbsp butter melted & cooled
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup Dutch-process Cocoa
pinch of salt
1 cup Dark Chocolate Chips
3/4 cup walnuts chopped
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375º.
Grease 8x8x2” pan.
Mix sugar, flour, cocoa & salt in large bowl.
Add eggs, vanilla, & melted-then-cooled butter and mix until smooth.
Add dark chocolate chips and walnuts.
Place batter into greased pan and bake 20-27 min, or until wet batter in the center of brownies no longer attaches to knife.
Note: This is part of an occasional series of heart-healthy and fitness-ready recipes for skiers. The following was submitted by Olympic biathlete Tracy Barnes, who co-wrote the Twin Biathletes’ Cookbook with her sister, Lanny. For more on the Colorado-based Barnes twins or to buy their book, visit their blog, twinbiathletes.com. Have a favorite recipe of your own? Share it with us by emailing alex@fasterskier.com.
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Spaghetti Squash is super good for you, being rich in nutrients and low in calories. It also absorbs the flavors of the other ingredients really well. Use in place of pasta. Here are two delicious spaghetti squash recipes for you to enjoy:
One of two spaghetti squash recipes from the Twin Biathletes’ Cookbook.
To cook the spaghetti squash:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Cut Spaghetti squash in half lengthwise.
Scoop out the seeds and place the cut side down on a baking sheet.
Pierce the shell several times with a fork and place in oven.
Bake for 45 min to 1 hour or until squash is tender.
Remove from oven and let cool for 15 min.
Use a fork to remove the spaghetti strands from the squash. Drain any excess liquid from shell and strands
Place spaghetti strands in bowl, add ingredients (see below).
Spoon back into squash shell and place in over for 10-15 minutes.
Remove from oven and enjoy!
Spaghetti squash, asparagus, pine nuts, etc.
1 small spaghetti squash
2 tablespoons Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 bunch thin asparagus, steamed tender
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon McCormick Tuscan Seasonings
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pine nuts
Steam asparagus and chop into 1 inch pieces. Mix all ingredients with spaghetti squash. Place back in shell. Bake for 10-15 min and enjoy.
Spaghetti squash, tomato sauce, mozzarella, prosciutto, basil etc.
1 small spaghetti squash
1-16oz. can of fire-roasted tomatoes diced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 small package of small fresh mozzarella balls
1 teaspoon McCormick Italian Seasonings
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 small package of thin sliced prosciutto ham
Slice prosciutto in small pieces. Mix all ingredients with spaghetti squash. Place back in shell. Bake for 10-15 min and enjoy.
Note: This is the second recipe in an occasional series of heart-healthy and fitness-ready food recommendations for skiers. The following was submitted by Olympic biathlete Tracy Barnes, who co-wrote the Twin Biathletes’ Cookbook with her sister, Lanny. For more on the Colorado-based Barnes twins or to buy their book, visit their blog, twinbiathletes.com. Have a favorite recipe of your own? Share it with us by emailing alex@fasterskier.com.
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For Crepes
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
pinch of salt
For Filling
1 cup tart or sweet apple cubed
1 lb of sweet ground sausage
1/2 cup cubed Vermont cheddar
Italian seasonings
Maple syrup (to drizzle on top)
Mix crepe ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Heat crepe pan until hot. Pour small amount of crepe mixture into bottom of pan and spread evenly. Flip when light brown on bottom. Set aside on plate and repeat until mixture has run out.
Cook ground sausage in skillet until done and set aside. Cut apples and cheddar and set aside.
Preheat oven to 415º. With crepe open, place apples, sausage, cheddar, seasonings on one side and fold. Cook in oven for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted. Serve with Maple syrup on top! Enjoy…
Carne Asada Elk with Grilled Fruit/Corn (from Tracy and Lanny Barnes/twinbiathletes.com)
Note: This is the first in an occasional series of heart-healthy and fitness-ready recipes for skiers. The following was submitted by Olympic biathlete Tracy Barnes, who co-wrote the Twin Biathletes’ Cookbook with her sister, Lanny. For more on the Barnes twins or to buy their book, visit their blog, twinbiathletes.com. Have a favorite recipe of your own? Share it with us by emailing alex@fasterskier.com.
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Carne Asada Elk (or Beef) with Grilled Fruit/Corn
This is a great summer time grilling recipe. The best Mexican food is simple with fresh ingredients. Hope you enjoy!
Tracy (r) and Lanny Barnes skiing together into the finish of the 2013 North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships 7.5 k sprint last weekend in Jericho, Vt. The twin sisters co-wrote a cookbook, Twin Biathletes’ Cookbook.
3 Tablespoons Lime Juice or 2 fresh squeezed limes
1 clove garlic minced
1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
1 1/2 Teaspoons Liquid Smoke
1 handful of fresh cilantro chopped (stems & leaves)
Add thin sliced Elk or Beef to plastic ziploc bag. Add the rest of the ingredients. Seal ziploc bag. Mix up meat & other ingredients in bag. Place Meat & Marinade in Fridge for 1-6 hours.
Remove meat from bag and place on hot grill. Grill for a very short period of time (1-2 min) on each side. Don’t over cook. May take less than a minute on each side.
Other Ingredients:
On the grill:
Grill 2 Ears of Corn. Rotate on grill until corn is tender. Once cooked, cut corn off the cob.
Grill thin sliced pineapple. Grill for a minute or less on each side.
JERICHO, Vt. — Images from Day 2 of the North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships: the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit on Aug. 11 at the Ethan Allen Firing Range. (Women’s 10 k pursuit photos in progress.)
Russell Currier
Brendan Green on course at North American Rollerski Biathlon Championships this summer.
Tim Burke
Jay Hakkinen
Jean-Philippe Le Guellec
Wynn Roberts
Marc-Andre Bedard
Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada) racing to seventh in the 12.5 k pursuit in early August at 2013 North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt. Four months later, he’s punched his ticket to Sochi.
Jeremy Teela
Scott Perras
Scott Gow
Raleigh Goessling
Bill Bowler (r) and Christian Gow
Christian Gow
Macx Davies racing in the 2013 North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships 12.5 k pursuit in Jericho, Vt.
Casey Smith
Ethan Dreissigacker
Guillaume Bertrand
Conrad Roberts
Sam Dougherty
Lowell Bailey (c) leads first time into range, cleans first prone
Brendan Green (l) and Tim Burke get ready to shoot head-to-head in the first prone. Both missed one.
Lowell Bailey leads through the first standing
Green (l) and Burke still together through first standing
Bailey in clear control through second standing
Bailey
Green (l) and Burke still duking it out through final standing stage
Burke leaves the range first with two misses.
Green follows after cleaning the last stage to pass Burke for second place
Lowell Bailey competing at North American Summer Biathlon Championships in August, where he also swept both the sprint and pursuit races.
Lowell Bailey pushes through the finish. He won by more than three minutes in 32:10.
Green pushing toward the finishing strech
Burke bringing it home in third
Leif Nordgren (r) holds of Jay Hakkinen near the finish. Nordgren placed fourth and Hakkinen was fifth.
Hannah Dreissigacker (Craftsbury Green Racing Project/USBA A-team) heads out with a 30-second lead in Sunday’s pursuit after winning the sprint on Saturday at North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt. She went on to place second to Canadian Rosanna Crawford.
JERICHO, Vt. – It’s not easy having a target on your back. Ask Hannah Dreissigacker, who made the US Biathlon A-team this year at age 26, just a year after fully committing to the sport. A member of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, which her parents founded, Dreissigacker previously dabbled in both biathlon and cross-country skiing, racing whenever she could and shooting on the side.
This season heading into the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, she’s going to be one of the U.S. women to watch.
Not completely accustomed to all the attention, Dreissigacker was showered with hugs and congratulations after Saturday’s opening race at the North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships. She won the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint by 31 seconds – no small feat for a relative newcomer. Sure, she’s raced International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cups and World Championships, but Dreissigacker was now one step closer to securing a trip to the US Biathlon (USBA) November camp in Sweden, where World Cup starts will be dolled out. Athletes that do well there could represent the U.S. at the Olympics.
But let’s not get too far ahead. Dreissigacker said the step-by-step qualification system – which starts with rollerski trials in Jericho and two more in October in Midway, Utah – was a “pretty fair” system. Top skiers between the four races qualify for the Sweden camp and will shoot for the World Cup from there.
“It’s not like you win this and you go to the Olympics,” Dreissigacker said. “You have to do well enough in the rollerski races in the summer, but you have to do well in the winter, too.”
US Biathlon teammates Hannah Dreissigacker (r) and Susan Dunklee (c) in the range together with Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford for the final standing of Sunday’s 10 k pursuit at North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt.
Despite several chances to prove herself worthy of the USBA’s standards, the Vermont native found herself a little nervous on Saturday, then even more so before Sunday’s 10 k pursuit. She was given a 30-second head start – not a ton of time when you’ve got Canadian Olympic team member Rosanna Crawford and the top-ranked U.S. woman, Susan Dunklee, on your heels.
“I wasn’t nervous until just little bit before for the race and then suddenly I was starting to get that feeling of having people behind you,” Dreissigacker said. “That’s what makes a real biathlon race. With the shooting aspect, there’s so much potential to move around so that’s what makes it fun.”
A day after hitting 7 of 10 targets on a windy morning at the Ethan Allen Firing Range, Dreissigacker missed seven out of 20 in the pursuit, one in the first prone and two in each stage thereafter, to finish second to Crawford.
Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) winning Sunday’s 10 k pursuit by more than a minute at North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt.
On the first of five laps, Crawford and Dunklee entered the range just as Dreissigacker was leaving. Crawford, 25, gradually closed the gap before taking the lead the last time around. One of two women on Biathlon Canada’s national team, she won in 31:14, a minute and 12 seconds ahead of Dreissigacker. Dunklee struggled with shooting, missing two on the first prone then four on the first standing before finishing fifth with eight penalties (2-0-4-2).
Meanwhile, Crawford cleaned all but the second prone for 19-for-20 shooting. She skied one too many penalty loops when she didn’t realize she cleaned the first prone.
“I thought I had missed my last shot, but turns out it was a really slow split,” she explained. “I didn’t hear them tell me it went down until I was already in the penalty loop and even then I wasn’t sure what they were saying.”
She finished the loop and headed back out, not thinking too much of it. Fortunately for Crawford, the races had little implications: she’d already prequalified for Sochi and was simply measuring her progress. The day before, she’d finished second to Dreissigacker after missing three on the prone (3-0). Her first lap on Saturday had been slower than some of the U.S. women’s, so she wanted to push harder from start to finish and see if she could hang in for the duration.
It ended up working out both days, even after an intense training block culminating in Jericho.
“It’s been a tough couple weeks leading into these races so I’m glad I’m not totally dead on the skis,” Crawford said. “It was a good chance for me to work on a few things, like pushing my lap times and shooting a bit faster standing.”
Slightly disappointed with her prone shooting while being patient with her new stock, Crawford picked up some tips from a Norwegian with a Master’s degree in dry firing, who presented at the Ethan Allen military base on Saturday night.
“It was an interesting talk and reminded of a few things I used to do during the race season that really helped lead to some good shooting,” she explained. “I shot really slow [in Sunday’s] prone, and I was pretty happy to come off it with only 1 miss!”
Tracy Barnes (Twin Biathletes) finishing third in the 10 k pursuit to keep the Barnes’ podium tradition alive at North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt.
Starting seventh and 1:24 behind Dreissigacker, Tracy Barnes (Twin Biathletes) rose to third with three penalties (2-0-1-0), 1:31 behind Crawford. She and her twin sister Lanny, a USBA B-team member who improved from 11th in the sprint to seventh, both cleaned the second prone in the pursuit.
Last year, Lanny swept both races in Jericho, but the two have been recovering from compartment-syndrome surgery since February, when a Colorado Springs doctor made incisions in their leg muscles to relieve pressure.
“Physically my legs are feeling better than they have in years,” Tracy wrote in an email. “I was disappointed in my result during the sprint, but not surprised that I might be a little further back than I wanted to be.”
On Saturday, she missed three prones and cleaned the standing; Lanny had one penalty in the prone and three in the standing.
“Lanny and I both knew that training had been a little slow coming into this because of our surgery and we wouldn’t be where we were normally,” she explained. “We just wanted to get back into racing and see where we were at and go from there. My game plan for the pursuit was just picking people off. There’s always an opportunity for that in a pursuit, which makes the race so much fun.”
She also spent quite a bit of time on course with her sister: one lap in the sprint and several in the pursuit.
“I love being able to do that,” Tracy wrote. “It makes me more relaxed. … We like to rumble against each other and push each other in training and racing so it makes it a blast.”
A member of Canada’s World Cup team, Audrey Vaillancourt missed just one shot on the day (0-0-1-0) for fourth in the pursuit, up from 10th in the sprint. USBA A-team members Sara Studebaker and Annelies Cook finished sixth and eighth, respectively. Canadian Claude Godbout (Courcelette) was ninth, and Biathlon Canada’s Megan Imrie placed 10th.
This is a scene the U.S. hopes will play out at the Olympics: Tim Burke on the podium after earning silver in the 20 k individual at 2013 World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. Photo: Nordic Focus/USBA.
The last five years have seen the size, resources, and focus of the U.S. biathlon team rise and fall, then rise and fall again. There have been shifting standards on what constitutes an “A” team performance, how much discretion is used, the size of the “B” team, and even how late into the season athletes are added to the team.
But the 2014 season is different for one huge, glaring reason: Sochi, Russia, which will host the Olympic Games.
And so, in an effort to be the absolute best it can be at the Games, the U.S. Biathlon Association is sinking all of its resources into a skeleton crew of elite seniors as the big event draws near.
“That’s definitely what we’re doing, and what the [U.S.] Olympic Committee is willing to support,” USBA President Max Cobb told FasterSkier last week. “We will have a very different strategy for the 2014-15 season than we have now, that’s very clear… [but] that’s the approach we’re taking this year.”
Four men and four women were recently nominated to the “A” team for the 2013-2014 season, and just three athletes in total to the “B” team. It’s the smallest squad that the U.S. has nominated in years.
He is joined on the “A” team by Lowell Bailey, Russell Currier, and Leif Nordgren. The four men qualified automatically for “A” status by finishing fifth in the World Cup 4 x 7.5 k relay in Oberhof, Germany, in January. A top-seven relay result is specified as one of several possible qualification criteria in the national team criteria.
On the women’s side, Cobb said that Susan Dunklee, Annelies Cook, and Sara Studebaker all met individual qualification criteria for the “A” team, while Hannah Dreissigacker, who started her first World Cups partway through the season, was a discretionary pick.
Susan Dunklee had the best U.S. women’s result of the season, placing seventh in the 15 k individual at the Sochi World Cup – where the team previewed the Olympic venue. Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.
“We looked at her results and she had two top-20 finishes on the IBU Cup, and we thought she had a strong performance in the relay at World Cup 6 and at World Championships, so for the future, she has the ability to contribute,” Cobb said of Dreissigacker, who along with Dunklee is also affiliated with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project. “She had a top-60 at the World Championships and had competitive international ski times, so that was really good.”
Dreissigacker’s inclusion is also notable as it is the first time in recent memory that four women have been named to the “A” team. Cobb hoped that having a larger training group, more comparable to the atmosphere on the men’s team, would propel the women to greater success.
“We’re really excited about the progress of the women’s team,” he said. “I think that having those four women training together throughout the season is really going to drive things to an even higher level, and be a big step forward for the coming season.”
All eight “A” team athletes competed at World Championships, where they collected four top-20 results and an additional eight top-40 finishes – all of which bodes well for next year’s Olympic Games. The only two athletes not to score points at World Championships were Dreissigacker, for whom it was the first trip to the sport’s second-biggest stage, and Currier, who proved his abilities last season when he collected two individual top-ten performances on the World Cup.
B-Team Veterans
Unusually for a national team, the “B” level is filled only with veterans – all of whom have had Olympic success in the past. While none of the three achieved particularly strong international results last season, USBA is hoping that they can be in the mix come trials and make the teams more competitive.
For the women, Lanny Barnes is the sole “B” team nominee. After a mediocre year where she started on the World Cup and then saw some IBU Cup action, she and twin sister Tracy Colliander, herself a 2006 Olympian, underwent surgery for compartment syndrome. On their website they wrote that the injuries had been bothering them for a long time; they are already back on skis.
“It seems like their surgery was successful and that they were pretty quickly back able to get around again, unlike Tim’s surgery, where he was off his feet for a long time,” Cobb said. “So that’s really positive, and we’re hopeful that it will be good and that their results will come back up. But the truth is that the results really weren’t strong for either one of them this season, so there was no rationale for bringing them on to the A team.”
Can he do it again? Now a dad, Jeremy Teela (left) has his work cut out for him if he’s going to repeat his ninth-place finish from the sprint at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Also on the “B” team are Jay Hakkinen and Jeremy Teela, two long-time national team veterans. Along with Lanny Barnes, Teela had the best U.S. results at the 2010 Olympics. The men hope to make one last Games this winter.
“Having spoken to both of them, they are both very concentrated and focused,” Cobb said. “You know, Jeremy welcomed his first son into the world just before the season began, and I think that he took a necessary break from the rigors of training and preparing for international competition, and he still went on and had fairly close selection races with Jay. So he was already able to compete successfully with Jay, and for both of them the big challenge is what they can make happen for this year going into the Olympics. And I think both of them will really put everything they have into it.”
This year, the “B” team designation has little benefit in the way of training or off-season support; while in the past it has been a group of athletes who live and train in Lake Placid, many of the veterans prefer to train out of their own home bases. In addition, more of the camps than usual will be limited to the “A” team.
“It’s less ‘B’ team participation than we had last year,” Cobb said. “But there has always been a difference, there have always been camps where only the ‘A’ team was invited. We have the camps where we are using rollerski competitions to qualify athletes for the on-snow training camp in Sweden, and there we will have support for the ‘B’ team athletes, but other than that, this year most of the camps will be only the ‘A’ team.”
Further Cuts to Development
What the “B” team lacks this year is the usual crop of younger athletes who are rising through the ranks. Given the team’s funding situation, Cobb said, there just wasn’t the possibility to include development in this year’s national team. The team is so small, has no new members, and only one under the age of 25.
“We are very cognizant of the fact that it is very hard right now to be a developing biathlete in the United States,” Cobb said. “It’s very difficult to stay in the sport. That said, we think that the strategy that we’re taking to give the leading group of athletes everything they need to be successful will be one that results in longer-term prosperity for all of us.”
The team nominations came with an announcement that the junior national team will be named at a later date, and Cobb mentioned that USBA is particularly excited about the development trajectories of younger athletes like Casey Smith, Anna Kubek, Tara Geraghty-Moats, and newly-minted Youth World Champion Sean Doherty.
The national team money going towards development this year will be some token amount for a junior team, the details of which are yet to be announced; it will help athletes like Sean Doherty, 2013 Youth World Champion in the pursuit and twice a silver medalist. Photo: UBSA/NordicFocus.
But the athletes left in the lurch are those that are old enough to be out of the junior ranks, but who weren’t seen to have much of a shot in this Olympic cycle. Katrina Howe of the Maine Winter Sports Center, Wynn Roberts of the National Guard, Bill Bowler (who has headed north of the border to train with the Biathlon Alberta Training Center), and Mark Johnson of Mount Itasca spring to mind, as all made international tours this season or last season. In addition, Corrine Malcolm was not re-named to the national team.
Several younger athletes, too, are just negotiating the transition out of the junior ranks. Without development funding from USBA, it’s tough to know how many might make it through the end of the next Olympic cycle, after a raft of current national team members will have presumably retired.
Cobb, however, stressed that biathlon is not alone in this challenge.
“We’re not the only sport in the country that’s really challenging from a financial standpoint to continue to progress in,” he explained. “Unfortunately it’s not that uncommon. I actually just spent a day and a half with [USOC Chief of Sport Performance] Alan Ashley and had some great conversations about long term strategies from the Olympic Committee that could try to change that, to bring more resources to bear on developing sports so that it’s not so challenging for good athletes working their way up through the system.”
Future Goals
If all goes well in Sochi, Cobb hopes that success will bring more money to the program and allow them to re-establish a better development program. And that includes, among other things, once again reaching out to the ski community in search of new biathletes – a strategy that worked well for Dartmouth College graduates Studebaker, Dunklee, and Dreissigacker.
“Seeing the success from Susan, Sara, and Hannah, we envision being able to reach out again to collegiate athletes and be able to offer them the opportunity to be able to jump into biathlon,” Cobb said. “We recognize that we have really limited resources, and we need to focus them this year as concentrated as possible on success in Sochi, and if they are successful there, that will only help us to have a broader development program in the year after.”
In the meantime, he hopes that the few club teams that exist in the U.S. can continue to shoulder the burden of funding developing athletes.
“On the positive side, we still have some good clubs,” he said. “I know that Raleigh Goessling and Casey Smith will spend some more time at Maine Winter Sports Center, and Katrina Howe is there. The Craftsbury program is really offering athletes another opportunity in biathlon now, and that seems to be growing – Algis Shalna is putting a fair amount of time into that project as well now.”
There are a few other reasons to be optimistic, too. For instance, Burke’s silver medal is an additional carrot in continuing negotiations to attract new corporate sponsors.
“There’s no question that it’s made– we had started some of the discussion with companies before Tim’s medal, and that really helped continue those discussions,” he said. “I think that the results we have this season are good and are compelling and will help that process, and there are active proposals on the table now that are into third-round discussions.”
Finally, skiing on the whole is seeing exponentially more success in the United States, and, Cobb hopes, that added visibility can help each of the sports that fall under the nordic umbrella.
“It’s also coming at a time when the cross country team and nordic combined are also very successful, more successful than we’ve been,” Cobb said. “But in general, it brings the attention back to nordic sports, and that is really, really helpful, especially going into Sochi. I know NBC is going to be very focused on Kikkan [Randall] in Sochi, and I think that will be of great benefit to nordic sports generally, and to biathlon as well.”
2013-2014 U.S. National Team:
Men “A”:
Lowell Bailey, Lake Placid, NY
Tim Burke, Paul Smiths, NY
Russell Currier, Stockholm, ME (Maine Winter Sports Center)
Leif Nordgren, Marine, MN
Men “B”:
Jay Hakkinen, Kasilof, AK
Jeremy Teela, Park City, UT
Women “A”:
Annelies Cook, Saranac Lake, NY (Maine Winter Sports Center)
Hannah Dreissigacker, Morrisville, VT (Craftsbury Green Racing Project)
Susan Dunklee, Barton,VT (Craftsbury Green Racing Project)
Lanny Barnes powering her way to a sprint victory at the North American Rollerski Biathlon Championships on Saturday in Jericho, Vt.
JERICHO, Vt. – If one thing is constant in summer biathlon races here at the Ethan Allen Firing Range, it’s the sight of Lanny and Tracy Barnes near the top of the results sheets. Since 2009, only one of the sisters, Tracy, has been off the podium – and it was just once. Lanny has won the majority of the races.
And the 2012 edition of the North American Rollerski Biathlon Championships was no different. Lanny Barnes won Saturday’s 7.5 k sprint by almost 20 seconds, and then doubled down to take the 10 k pursuit title by over a minute.
Tracy Barnes placed third in the sprint, behind Claude Godbout of Quebec, before moving up in the pursuit to finish second behind her sister.
The key for both of the Durango-based twins was shooting: over two days and a combined total of six shooting stages, or 30 shots, Lanny missed two targets and Tracy three. The other women in the race had at least four penalties in the pursuit alone.
Neither Barnes was available for comment.
Godbout approaching the range on Saturday.
Godbout, a native of Valcartier whose only World Cup experience was at the 2011 races in Fort Kent and Presque Isle, Maine, was happy with her podium finish on Saturday, but hesitated to draw conclusions about how she would stack up against the U.S. national team women she beat once the races moved to snow.
“It’s different, seeing that we all have different rollerskis and even if you have the same brand, sometimes the wheels are just used,” Godbout said after the race. “So yeah, you can compare with each other, but it’s never the same from the summer to the winter.”
Nevertheless, she appreciated the chance to race against some more experienced Americans.
“Susan [Dunklee] passed me on the second loop, and you see how she skis, and she’s really fast so you try to stay with her,” Godbout said. “And that’s fun because I’m training with three younger girls in Quebec City, so to be here training with older people who are super strong is always fun.”
Godbout is in the midst of a major increase in volume, as part of her bid to make the Olympic team in 2014; Sochi, she said, is her main focus. As a result, she didn’t feel like she had her top gear with her this weekend. But that wasn’t the point.
“It’s been a while that I’ve been training and always doing the same things,” she explained on Saturday. “So I’m trying this year to change my training a little bit and to do a lot of training, a lot of volume, and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work, then at least you tried and you still have one more year. So we’ll see how it goes. Right now I’m happy with today.”
Dunklee, like many of her national team teammates, was undone by shooting in the sprint: along with Sara Studebaker, Hannah Dreissigacker, and Corinne Malcolm, she shot one penalty in prone and four in standing, for an overall total of fifty percent. But despite five penalties to Tracy Barnes’ two, Dunklee was just nine seconds behind her in fourth place.
Tracy Barnes approaching the range on Saturday.
“I just didn’t feel very settled,” Dunklee said of her standing stage. “Sometimes if I miss the first two shots I’ll kind of reset, put my head up, look at the targets and start over again, but I’m not really sure why [that didn’t help].”
She did have one idea to explain her poor performance on the range. A fierce competitor, Dunklee had gotten wrapped up in trying to keep up with the men once they started the race a few minutes after the women.
“On that second loop I got excited because they guys had started, and they began passing us and I’d say, ‘I’m going to stick on this one,’” she explained. “So I did these little miniature sprints all over the loop. I didn’t pace myself very well. I just really like trying to ski behind people who are faster, and trying to pick up on their technique… [skiing with the men] when we’re going hard doesn’t happen very often.”
U.S. women’s coach Jonne Kahkonen wasn’t quite sure why his athletes struggled on the range on Saturday, but hypothesized that the first real races of each summer are always much more difficult than training. He also mentioned the heat and humidity, which sapped athletes’ energy this weekend.
“I don’t know what reason, but it always seems like the first tough effort here takes some adjusting,” Kahkonen said. “For us coming from Lake Placid, it’s just a little bit different approach, maybe [the uphill into the range] and the different terrain. So it seems like that plays a role, but they can adapt pretty quickly now. I’m expecting a little bit better for tomorrow.”
He was right: none of the women in the field shot fifty percent or worse in the pursuit, although none attained the Barnes standard of perfection, either.
Studebaker competing in Saturday’s sprint.
In part because she is pre-qualified for a training camp in Sweden in November, which these rollerski races serve as trials for, Dunklee skipped Sunday’s pursuit.
“I feel like the last couple years every single race I’ve been in has been a trials race of some sort, and it was so nice to not have to deal with that,” she laughed.
Instead, it was the other pre-qualified athlete, Studebaker, who broke into the top three when Godbout faltered with eight penalties. Studebaker had placed a disappointing seventh in the sprint, and started the pursuit about 80 seconds behind Godbout.
“It’s always nice to move up in a pursuit, and today was no different,” Studebaker wrote in an e-mail this morning. “Going into the last loop Annelies [Cook], Claude, Yolaine [Oddou] and I all left the penalty loop right near each other so I had a good time chasing people down and trying to end on a high note. It was definitely nice having the Quebec biathletes come down and add some depth to our field since we get to race each other all the time.”
Kahkonen said that he had been chatting with Jean Paquet, the Quebec-based Canadian men’s team coach, about how to have more joint race opportunities and even training camps.
“I think it’s always good [to have them],” he said of the Canadian athletes. “I always say that there’s only so many of us, so we should try to get the North Americans together. I hope we can do this more in the future.”
Canada's Marc-Andre Bedard leads Austria's Friedrich Pinter in Canmore on Saturday. Photo: Michael Potter.
Last year, the world’s best biathletes got a taste of northern Maine when the World Cup made stops in Fort Kent and Presque Isle.
This season, the top racers are staying firmly ensconced in Europe. But instead of letting the sport get too comfortable on what could be considered its home turf, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) sent their eponymously named IBU Cup circuit across the Atlantic, and for the last week the “second World Cup” has been contested in Canmore, Alberta.
For the Canadians, bringing the races to their country has been huge. But even the Americans got behind the effort. Continental solidarity was high.
“This is as close to home as I will ever get for an international competition and I’m still in the Rockies, so it feels like home here,” said U.S. biathlete Lanny Barnes, a native of Durango, Colorado, who podiumed in Canmore. “The Canadians have put on some great races and are always very welcoming to the U.S. team. This is probably one of the most beautiful venues on the world.”
Melanie Schultz takes a corner against the backdrop of the Canadian Rockies. Photo: Michael Potter.
On both Saturday and Sunday, the athletes competed in sprints – 7.5 k for women, 10 k for men, a prone and a standing shooting stage apiece. On Wednesday, they doubled their distance for individual races, which featured four shooting stages instead of two and a one-minute penalty for each missed shot. On Thursday, it was back to sprints, and the penalty loop if the athletes made any errors.
Over the four days of racing, North Americans picked up three wins, three more podium finishes, and a total of 21 top-tens.
“These races have been great for Canadian biathlon,” Biathlon Canada High Performance Director Chris Lindsay told FasterSkier.
Nathan Smith, who raced to all three of the Canadian wins at the races, agreed.
“These were the highest caliber races to be held in Canada outside of the Olympics in recent history,” he said. “It’s good for publicity and getting new people involved in the sport. Our team got a lot of medals and top-6 results here… you can feel the team’s momentum.”
Other athletes confirmed that there was a loud fan base for the weekend races, although they lamented lower midweek attendance.
“It was too bad none of the schools came out to watch on the weekdays, but we still have a good number of people out there cheering,” said Canadian biathlete Rosanna Crawford. “Hopefully this will lead to World Cups being held in Canmore.”
Men’s Races: Domination By Smith
Three-time Olympian Robin Clegg placed ninth in Saturday's sprint. Photo: Michael Potter.
The story of the week – not only for the Canadian team, but for the circuit itself – was the near-total domination by 26-year-old Calgary native Smith.
Smith, who trains in Canmore, started out by winning the opening sprint by a mere five seconds over Russia’s Sergey Klyachin; Norwegian Martin Eng, who has an 11th-place World Cup finish to his name, was another second and a half behind.
In the next sprint, Smith shot clean and extended his lead, this time finishing 40 seconds ahead of Friedrich Pinter of Austria. After sitting out the individual race, Smith made it three-for-three with a four-second victory over Pinter in Thursday’s race.
“To have my first IBU win in Canmore was… amazing!” Smith told FasterSkier. “I’ve been training here since I started biathlon. I know a lot of the volunteers, so I’m proud that I could reward them in a small way for all their hard work over the years.”
Smith’s path to dominance really started at IBU Cup races in Obertilliach, Austria in December, where he placed third in a 10 k sprint, the first podium of his career.
“The bronze I got in December in Obertilliach was very special,” Smith said. “That was the first time I’d ever put good skiing and shooting together in an international race.”
After two more top-ten finishes in IBU Cup action in January, Smith made a brief jaunt onto the World Cup himself, producing a top result of 47th in a sprint in Antholz, Italy. When he returned to Canada for these races, he knew he could once again be near the top.
“All year I had been having really good time trials amongst the national team and I was hoping for a breakout performance,” he said.
He got it, and even though Canadian events are sometimes lightly attended by international teams, in this case Smith still had to beat out the IBU Cup’s best. Pinter, for example, has a handful of World Cup podiums to his name and owns a World Championships relay medal; the top three racers in the overall IBU Cup standings were also in the mix.
“The big difference here is how the pack thins out a little farther down the result sheet,” Smith said. “I think it was mostly the slower skiers who were missing. I think my races wouldve been at or very near the top if in Europe…. I was within striking distance of first at the IBU cup in Italy twice except my shooting wasn’t as good.”
Being in familiar surroundings, Smith explained, helped achieve his career-best performances.
“I knew I would have a little leg up on a lot of the other competitors because I got back to Canmore a couple weeks before the first race,” Smith said, before laughing it off. “Fair is fair though, since most of the time its the other way around!”
In the first sprint, Smith was joined in the top ten by three-time Olympian Robin Clegg, who missed two shots to Smith’s one and finished 55 seconds back in ninth.
In the second two sprints, it was Marc-Andre Bedard who kept him company, placing seventh and fifth.
“I had great races, but it didn’t feel like it,” Bedard said of his results. “I think I’m getting in better shape, and it’s just starting to feel good. There were quite a bit fewer people here than in Europe, so that helps the results for sure, but compared to the top guys my ski times are really better [than earlier this season].”
Bedard liked the atmosphere in Canmore, but said that if he could get absolutely everything he wanted, the races would be on the other side of the country: “It was pretty cool, but I’d love to race at home in Quebec once in my life at an international race!”
Jeremy Teela led the U.S. men, finishing 11th, 13th, 25th, and 12th.
Women’s Races: Depth and Consistency
Canada's Yolaine Oddou was the first North American woman to hit the podium. Photo: Michael Potter.
The North American women couldn’t match Smith’s domination. They did, however, have something else going for them: depth. While a Canadian or American woman never topped the podium, Canadians Yolaine Oddou and Megan Heinicke and American Lanny Barnes all took their turns on the lower steps. Twice, the North Americans placed five women in the top ten.
In the opening sprint, Rosanna Crawford led the way in eighth followed one second later by Oddou in ninth; four more North Americans packed the top twenty.
“I was a bit disappointed in the race Saturday with the missed shot in prone,” said Barnes, who placed 12th. “You can’t afford to miss on a day like that with perfect conditions. The great thing was we had another opportunity on the same course and same race format to give it another go on Sunday.”
With a fire in her belly, Barnes stepped up her game in the second sprint – as did the rest of the North Americans. Oddou placed third, Barnes and Heinicke tied for fourth, and Crawford and American Laura Spector placed ninth and tenth.
Success continued in the weekday races, with Heinicke placing second and Barnes third in the individual, and then Crawford placing sixth in the sprint and leading teammate Melanie Schultz, Spector, Heinicke, and American Tracy Barnes in a six-through-ten sweep.
At 21 years old, Oddou is in her first season of racing on the IBU Cup, and these were her best results by far. Crawford is a 2010 Olympian, but also considered the races to be highlights.
“It was great to be racing in my home town, and I had my best results of the season and great shooting in all the sprint races,” Crawford told FasterSkier. “I was top Canadian two out of three sprints so that was very exciting for me.”
For Crawford, there was a little added motivation, as her mother had just been through surgery for breast cancer but still managed to get out on the trails to cheer.
“Things had been pretty stressful for me leading into these races,” Crawford said. “But she is such a strong and amazing women and is one of the main reasons I have made it this far in biathlon. She was out there everyday with her cow bells and cheering louder than anyone else!”
Lanny Barnes was the most consistent of the Americans, and was particularly pleased with her podium finish on Wednesday.
“I knew I was in race because I could practically hear the announcer everywhere on course and our staff kept giving me splits of leading the race,” said Barnes, who led through the first half of the race and then regained her lead on the penultimate loop before tiring before the finish.
“I probably started out a little harder than I wanted to, and lost a little time in the end, but was happy that my skiing is coming around,” she explained. “I was bummed that [twin sister] Tracy wasn’t right in there with me, but she is just getting over a cold otherwise I think she might have give me a run for the money!”
Tracy Barnes told FasterSkier that due to illness she had taken the races “one day at a time,” and was happy, though not thrilled, with her performances.
“I’ve placed in the top ten several times this season and know I’m capable of it,” she said.
Susan Dunklee led the U.S. in 49th; scroll down for a report on the Americans. Photo: nordicfocus.com courtesy of USBA.
A couple of days ago, Canadian biathlete Megan Imrie couldn’t tell which way was up.
Luckily, she’s feeling better – and up was where she landed on Wednesday, near the top of the results sheet in a World Cup individual race in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. Despite a case of vertigo, Imrie finished a career-best 20th place.
Athletes have to deal with a lot of variables when they’re preparing for competitions, but vertigo – a syndrome of dizziness and disorientation – isn’t usually one of them. Imrie, however, woke up one morning last week to find the room spinning. She hasn’t been able to do much besides wait it out.
“Our flight left on Friday, and I still was too unstable to ski until Monday here in Nove Mesto,” Imrie told FasterSkier in an e-mail. “Walking was a trip, and skiing was out of the question – ditto shooting. I felt like I was on the lurching deck of ship.”
Unable to train, Imrie had little hope for her first competition of 2012.
“On Monday I wasn’t sure if I would race,” she said.
But by Tuesday morning, she was able to ski, and decided to at least give biathlon a try.
“I feel…not 100%, but it’s no longer affecting my skiing like it did earlier in the week,” she explained. “Getting in and out of prone position brought it on the most.”
Incredibly, Imrie cleaned both of her prone stages in Nove Mesto and one of the standing stages as well; it was only in the final stage, a standing test, that she missed two shots. Until then, the clean-shooting Canadian had been in the top ten. Thanks to the individual format, however, a minute was tacked onto her time for each miss and she dropped to 18th, before slipping to 20th over the final three-kilometer loop.
Imrie managed to keep her head straight and to adjust her shooting according to the wind, which she said was one of the main reasons for her success.
“I am usually very diligent about wind and how it moves my bullets around,” she wrote. “Here it seems there is always a strong wind. Since it was also an individual race, I made a point of knowing exactly what kind of games the wind might throw my way.”
All in all? She was “relieved” to have made it through the race, and the result was icing on the cake.
“I’m very pleased with the race and a personal best,” Imrie said. “Skiing was tough, a soft slushy course, which I was mentally ready for. And shooting was with focus but without pressure.
“I guess a little vertigo acted as a counterbalance for any unstable shooting.”
Imrie’s one teammate in the race, Zina Kocher, didn’t have quite the hardship that Imrie had faced, and as such turned out an even better result. Kocher had three penalties, all in the first two stages, but used the 10th-fastest ski time to jet to 15th place.
“The race wasn’t going very well after the first two shootings and I successfully turned it around with two clean bouts,” said a satisfied Kocher. “We arrived Saturday, so I am still feeling jet-lagged and could feel that heavy feeling in my legs halfway into the race.”
It was her second top-20 performance of the season, and Kocher felt that she was laying the base for even better results.
“With clean shooting today, I would have won, and that would have been an excellent day!” she told FasterSkier. “This isn’t impossible, it’s within reach… My misses were misses, but we are talking less than a centimeter to an inch or two of missing the target three times. It will come.”
The Canadians skipped the first World Cup races of 2012, which were held in Oberhof, Germany last week, in favor of training on home turf, and both Kocher and Imrie felt it had paid off. Kocher said that it was “no secret” that recovery leads to better performances.
“[The break] allowed us to recover from the last set of World Cups and get in a good amount of training to sustain us before preparation for World Championships,” she said. “Recovery is important after a racing trimester and a long flight, then it is just important to do a load of training without getting too punished.”
Imrie said that as a North American, it’s also important to “refuel on family time,” something that European racers can get more easily as they travel the World Cup circuit. She, too, was able to put in solid training thanks to the longer break; before leaving Canada, she had done an interval session with ski star Chandra Crawford.
“Family time was a blast, [and] in Canmore, training was perfect at the nordic center,” Imrie said.
World Championships don’t start until March, but the Canadians seem primed for success in Nove Mesto and the next three World Cup venues.
Especially, Kocher said, now that they have a little inspiration.
“[Imrie] gets bonus points of awesomeness for putting together such a great race,” she gushed.
* * *
Annelies Cook, 60th place, on the shooting range. Photo: nordicfocus.com courtesy of USBA.
The American team perhaps wished that they couldn’t tell up from down – none of the four women had a great day, and no doubt would have liked to swap with Finland’s Kaisa Makarainen, who picked up a 22-second win over Sweden’s Helena Ekholm despite having two penalties.
As it was, Susan Dunklee again led the way for the U.S. when she placed 49th. Sara Studebaker was 59th, and Annelies Cook and Tracy Barnes in the 60’s.
“The race today wasn’t very satisfying,” Dunklee wrote to FasterSkier in an e-mail. “Shooting was solid for me, but my skiing didn’t feel sharp at all and I wasn’t able to catch even a brief ride with the top names when they passed me. Usually that’s my favorite part of the race, the challenge of staying with them.”
Dunklee had four penalties and the 46th-fastest course time. She believed that her added caution due to the format – which is both the longest distance that the women ever race, and features the most severe penalties for missed shots – actually hurt her performance.
“I purposefully tried to pace myself a little smarter today than I did in my last individual, in Ostersund [Sweden],” she wrote. “But I think I made the mistake of going out too easy and never getting into race mode.”
Tracy Barnes. photo: nordicfocus.com courtesy of USBA.
Barnes, who landed 66th, had a different problem. It was her first World Cup start of the season, and to earn it she’d had to beat out several other American women in a series of trials races that included the IBU Cups in Forni Avoltri, Italy last week. While Barnes had excelled there – she placed 7th in the same event there on Saturday – it had used up some of her focus and energy.
“I was a bit mentally fried from the trials last week and that carried over to my skiing and shooting,” Barnes told FasterSkier. “Normally my standing shooting is my strength, but I just didn’t have that aggressive mentality in I normally do to hit my targets. The same went for the skiing. I was tired from last week, but that really wasn’t the problem, I just couldn’t get myself to be aggressive.”
Barnes said that she’ll take Thursday completely off from skiing and shooting in an attempt to recharge for Friday’s sprint race. She’s excited to be back on the World Cup, so she doesn’t anticipate any difficulties in regaining her focus.
“The course [in Nove Mesto] is really tough, but fun,” she wrote. “It’s really great to be back on the World Cup and I will be fighting hard to try and stay here and have good results. It’s a great group to be around.”
The Americans might not have been pleased with their results, but they were able to find things to be happy about anyway.
“On the bright side, it is inspiring to see a couple North Americans near the top,” Dunklee said.
Participants in the first-ever "Eagle Eyes" camp last March in Anchorage, Alaska. Courtesy photo.
Anchorage has long been home to many of the country’s best nordic skiers. With elite teams like APU, Alaska Winter Stars, the University of Alaska Anchorage, several strong high school programs, and a thriving recreational and masters race scene, skiers couldn’t ask for a more supportive community.
But biathletes? That was another story.
“I started biathlon in 2003, back when the Kincaid [shooting] range was at its old location,” 2011 World Junior Championships team member Sam Dougherty wrote in an e-mail to FasterSkier.
“The old range was equivalent to many of the ranges across the country at the time, with metal pull-string targets and carpet mats for prone shooting. [It] was built into a hill, so wind was a major factor in shooting accurately. The range had the usual problems: rusty paddles, broken prone targets, and so on. There were no lead traps, and all shots fired would inevitably land into the side of the hill.”
While Dougherty said that the old range was good to learn on, it certainly wasn’t perfect.
But all of that began to change in 2007, when the range was upgraded and moved to a new location as part of an $11 million project to support a variety of sports at Kincaid Park, the site of the 2009 and 2010 cross country national championships.
“When I trained there, I regularly had to deal with target paddles that broke off in the middle of practice,” two-time Olympian Rachel Steer told FasterSkier. “The new biathlon range, built to World Cup standards including a 30-point Hora target system, is located in an area that is less windy and offers many more trail options.”
The range is still awaiting its finishing touches, including a range house and paved loops connecting to the ski trails for summer training. But already, it has made a difference for Anchorage’s biathlon community.
“We’re growing, and the new range has been a big spark for us,” said Tom Grenier, the biathlon committee chair of the Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage (NSAA).
Olympic Support, Olympic Standards
Steer is only one of many biathletes to have trained in Anchorage: for fifteen years spanning the late 50’s, 60’s, and early 70’s, the city hosted the U.S. national team at Fort Richardson.
Among the dozens of young men who trained there was Dick Mize, who represented the U.S. in two World Championships as well as the 1960 Olympics. According to Mize, Anchorage hasn’t always been the ski paradise that it is now.
“Back in 1958 is when they established the biathlon training center out at Fort Richardson,” he told FasterSkier. “I was in the army with several other skiers from Western State College, and we were transferred to Anchorage to be part of that unit. We were skiing on the golf course and then started designing the Arctic Valley biathlon range.”
After finishing his career as a biathlete, Mize moved to Anchorage permanently to teach in the local school system and coach skiing. Once again, he was faced with only one real set of ski trails: the golf course.
Since then, Mize has been relentless in his quest to develop more and better ski trails in the city. He listed Russian Jack Springs, Kincaid Park, and the Service High School systems as several of the many projects he had contributed to; he also helped Kincaid become one of the first ski areas in the country to go through the FIS homologation process. This year the Alaska School Activities Association inducted Mize into their hall of fame, noting that “there are few individuals that have contributed more to Nordic skiing than Dick Mize.”
So it’s not surprising that Mize eventually set his sights on a new biathlon range for Anchorage.
“In 2003, Dwayne Adams met with a small group of us out at Kincaid… we were talking about [soccer and snowmaking], and I felt that if we were going to do some major construction out at Kincaid, that the biathlon range really needed to be upgraded,” he said.
Adams eventually created the Kincaid Project Group (KPG), a nonprofit organization with a mission to “create world-class, year-round recreational opportunities at Kincaid Park for the benefit of Anchorage and the greater Alaskan community.” Both Mize and Steer joined the board.
“As more enthusiastic and motivated people got involved, the project gained momentum and increased its scope to relocating the old biathlon range, building seven natural turf fields and one stadium-style artificial turf field, a new disc golf course and an in-ground snowmaking/irrigation system,” Steer wrote. “While I have been on the board of directors for many years, it has truly been a collaborative effort to make this vision a reality.”
Although then-governor Sarah Palin vetoed a legislative funding request in 2007 and cut a million dollars out of the 2008 request, KPG has come up with nearly all of the money to fund its projects. The old biathlon range was scrapped, resurfaced, and included in an area devoted to soccer fields; nearby, a brand-new, state-of-the-art range was constructed.
(The soccer fields on the site of the old range are facing legal issues due to lead contamination, a topic that FasterSkier will examine in a later article.)
“Since this project includes so many stakeholders, we have had broad support from community organizations, private businesses and the public sector,” Steer said. “Even U.S. Biathlon Association [President] Max Cobb made a last-minute trip up to Alaska a couple of years ago to offer guidance on layout and design when we were looking at the new biathlon range location.”
The range in winter.
While fundraising is still in progress for projects such as the range house and paved connector loops linking the range to other ski trails, the core of the range is complete, and it’s one of the best in the country. Out of the handful of venues which have a full 30 points, many still rely on hand-pulled targets. In Anchorage, that isn’t necessary; there’s a Hora electronic target system instead.
“We have pretty much the same equipment they’d be looking at on the World Cup circuit as far as the electronic targets and the resets and the look of the range,” Grenier said. “So once you’re on the firing line looking down you’re essentially looking down at a World Cup-level facility.”
The venue will host the U.S. World Junior Championship Trials in December, and Grenier hoped that a successful race series would position Anchorage as a potential host for other big events.
“We’re trying to build up a reputation of being capable for that stuff,” he said. “We’re doing that by hosting our second World Junior Championship Trials this December. We did that two years ago and the races were really well-received. So we’re hoping that we’ll have that quality event again, and hopefully build on that to get a nationals bid, and take it one step at a time from there.”
Mize was more upfront about his hopes for the venue.
“We could easily host our national competitions,” he told FasterSkier. “I’d say that once we have our range building completely finished up and have everything out there including a small snowmaking system, we can host regional and World Cup races as well as Nationals. We’re set up so that we can host almost any type of race.”
It’s quite a change from when Mize first arrived in Anchorage, and the improvements are symbolic of a resurgent biathlon community in the city.
Eagle Eyes
Biathlon in Anchorage is a division of the NSAA, and it’s run with an almost entirely volunteer coaching staff. While the club has produced excellent juniors, it’s surprisingly small for such a ski-crazed town.
“We aren’t the largest biathlon community, but we have a ton of dedicated volunteers and athletes,” said Dougherty, who is now at Montana State University.
The key to growing the club, according to Grenier, is to get a greater number of young skiers involved in the sport early. With that in mind he launched a new entry-level biathlon program last March.
Eagle Eyes participants. Courtesy photo.
“Eagle Eyes”, as the program is called, began as a day camp during winter vacation. Grenier decided to keep running practices through the summer, and was surprised at the turnout; he had eight to twelve young athletes coming to almost every practice, with a few more attending less regularly.
“I thought it would die off when the snow went away, but we’ve pretty much had a consistent turnout throughout the summer, and now with the snow coming back, turnout is starting to climb up again,” Grenier said.
This fall, the NSAA added a button to their online ski registration form that parents could check to receive information about biathlon. So far, Grenier has received 70 requests.
“My limiting factor is being able to find coaches,” he said. “The guys I want to use are all our older juniors, and they’re all college-age, so they’re not in town or frequently they are taking night classes. [I want to have] a good coaching ratio for everybody.
“And then my other limiting factor is just having enough rifles.”
Dougherty, who was once a junior just like the Eagle Eyes participants, credited the surge of awareness about the sport to the new range.
A young shooter uses a wooden block to steady his rifle. Courtesy photo.
“The range has also drummed up people’s interest in biathlon,” he said. “I am excited to see our biathlon community start to grow again.”
Even though he’s having trouble finding enough coaches and equipment, Grenier hopes to develop the Eagle Eyes program even more.
“I’m hoping to expand it from a one weeknight program to a two weeknight program, and have a second opening on weekends for kids to get together,” he said. “So far it’s growing nicely and interest is really solid. Hopefully I should be able to have 20 or 30 kids training consistently for biathlon in a year or two, which would be wonderful… We’re hoping to build a base of kids who will stick with the sport and become leaders for more high-end juniors.”
Catering to the Elite
While Grenier is working on entry-level programs at the moment, improving the club’s service for elite biathletes is also in the plans. One of the biggest changes will come when the group can finally hire a full-time biathlon coach.
“If we have a good facility like we have now, hopefully we’ll be able to hire a coach whose primary job would be developing and working with biathletes,” Mize said.
While that goal is still unmet, the new range has already made a huge difference for the area’s athletes.
Sam Dougherty (USA) shooting in the youth men's individual race at 2011 World Junior Championships. Photo: Judy Geer.
“I believe that training at the Kincaid range has definitely helped me become a better biathlete, not only because it is such a nice facility, but because I feel like I have to live up to its impressiveness,” Dougherty said. “The new range helped motivate me to become a better shooter and the best biathlete I can be. I think every biathlete in Anchorage feels that way.”
Mize hopes so, and also hopes that the facility – and the future full-time coach – would lure some athletes away from skiing.
“I think we are competing for athletes with just the regular cross country,” he said. “Each coach wants to keep their skiers on their schedule. But when we finally have a coach in place, I think the coaches from the high schools and also the universities and other areas can work together so that the individuals who are really interested in biathlon can do biathlon as well as their regular cross country program. Hopefully there can be some coordination there that will help.”
Once skiers become interested in biathlon, Dougherty was confident that the shiny new range would keep them coming back. Even after a few years of training there, he is still awestruck by the new facility.
“The new range has it all,” he said. “Sheltered electronic HoRa targets from Germany, a concrete barrier behind the targets, shooting specific shooting mats, a paved firing line, and a new stadium and lighting for night races, just to list a few. In all of my travels as a biathlete, I have never shot at a nicer range than the one in my hometown.
“When I went to Biathlon World Juniors this past year, I felt confident racing on the world stage. This confidence came in part from my experience with training at a world-class facility.”
Hometown heroes are certainly benefitting from the upgrades at Kincaid Park, but biathletes from further afield are taking advantage of the new range as well. U.S. national team members Jay Hakkinen and Sara Studebaker stopped by while they were passing through Alaska, and Olympians Tracy and Lanny Barnes, originally from Durango, Colorado, stayed for nearly a month this summer.
2006 Olympian Tracy Barnes supervises young biathletes in Anchorage this summer. Courtesy photo.
“We went to Alaska because our parents have a cabin in Homer and they will eventually retire there, and we wanted to see their place,” the sisters explained in an e-mail. “The Kincaid facility is awesome… the range is world class, with 30 targets and paved shooting points. Anchorage was a great place to train.”
Unlike Studebaker and Hakkinen, the twins settled into Anchorage and helped with the club’s junior program.
“It ended up working out wonderfully,” Grenier said. “For June we had this really great situation of high-end biathletes using the range and then taking an hour or so after their training sessions to do mini-clinics with all of our juniors, from middle-school aged beginners and younger up to our folks who made the Junior World Championships team last year. You couldn’t ask for anything better.”
While the Barnes sisters raved about the training opportunities in Anchorage, they were also impressed with the club itself, and said that they enjoyed their stay.
“It was a blast, the kids were so great!” the sisters gushed. “It was a really great group to train with. The kids were really motivated and super nice. We had quite the range of ages and abilities for the clinics. The kids from Anchorage are super talented and great skiers and shooters- some of them have previously made junior and youth world teams. The coaches and parents were really helpful and made working and training at Kincaid biathlon range really easy.”
Grenier said that he would like to have more elite athletes come to use the range, especially in the summer when the days are long and the training conditions are perfect.
“That’s something we’re thinking about, is especially in the summer months, when people are doing volume, opening our doors and inviting as many high-end athletes up for summer training as we can,” he said. “So hopefully we can get that kind of buzz going.”
While he was incredibly enthusiastic about what the Barnes had done to help the program, he said that he wouldn’t require other athletes to be so involved if they were too busy.
“The last couple folks who came through just worked the range and passed on through and we have no problem with that,” Grenier explained. “When a national team member contacts us, we ask them for their schedule and we set them up with Range Safety Officers so they can just drop in on the range and train and not have to worry about opening it or closing it.”
The Barnes didn’t see any reason why their teammates and competitors shouldn’t head north and take advantage of the new range.
“Alaska may be one of the best places to train for nordic,” they wrote. “You have snow in the summer, you can get altitude training if you need it, and also be in the mountains, but get the benefits of low altitude training. The weather during the summer is typically cooler too, so it suits nordic skiers better than those super hot places. There is great rollerskiing, and tons of great trails, too.”
The takeaway message about the range, Dougherty said, is that it draws you in.
“The Kincaid Range has the potential to host National and International events, and it is my dream to see that become a reality,” he wrote. “I can’t wait to get home from college at winter break to shoot on my home range. I miss it.”
If the range has a similar effect on other biathletes, then it could have a huge effect on the geography of U.S. biathlon – and make Anchorage once again a center of excellence for the sport.
The United States Biathlon Association has named six men and six women to attend a pre-World Cup training camp in Sweden in November. The camp will be used to divide the team further into a World Cup team and a group traveling to the IBU Cup, a coordinated international race circuit are one level below the World Cup.
The national A-team athletes, including Tim Burke, Jay Hakkinen, Leif Nordgren, Lowell Bailey, Sara Studebaker, and Laura Spector, were prequalified for the training camp. Other athletes were chosen based on the results of the North American Rollerski Biathlon Championships in Jericho, Vermont this summer and from time trials held at Soldier Hollow, Utah last week.
Three-time Olympian Jeremy Teela headlined the additions to the team, and was joined by fellow national team member Bill Bowler to round out the squad of six men. All but Bowler have experience at either the Olympic Games or World Championships, and the four A-team men worked together to notch a remarkable sixth-place finish at 2011 World Championships. Both Burke and Teela have stood on the World Cup podium before, while Hakkinen and Bailey have top-ten finishes to their names.
On the women’s side, Studebaker and Spector each notched top-twenty World Cup finishes last season. They will be joined by Tracy and Lanny Barnes of Durango, Colorado, who were the top qualifiers based off of time trial results. The twin sisters are not members of the national team although they have each competed in at least one Olympics, with Lanny Barnes posting the best U.S women’s result in a decade at the 2010 Games in Vancouver. National team members Susan Dunklee, who achieved top-ten results on the IBU circuit last year and Annelies Cook, who competed in the 2011 World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, round out the team.
Both the men and women will receive four starting spots on the World Cup circuit this season, so at least two men and two women will be sent to the IBU Cup following the training camp in November.
Tracy Barnes in the IBU Cup sprint race in Altenberg, Germany. Photo: Viktoria Franke.
When U.S. biathletes left Altenberg, Germany after the pursuit race on Saturday, they were saying goodbye not only to the venue, but to the entire IBU Cup circuit. While the U.S. Biathlon Association is supporting the World Cup team for the rest of the year, no more Continental Cup races will be funded.
Luckily, the team had plenty of satisfying results while in Europe, so the trip ended on a positive note.
“I’m proud of the women’s team this year and how we have done,” said Tracy Barnes. “I like our group, I like our posse.”
Barnes led the U.S. women in the final pursuit. Starting with bib 17, she missed three shots and slipped a few places to finish 23rd overall.
Annelies Cook was next, just seven seconds behind Barnes. She missed five shots in four shooting stages, and slipped from 21st to 25th.
While these might seem like a lot of penalties for a pursuit, conditions on the range were tricky, and not a single woman shot clean. In fact, there was only one woman with one penalty and two more with two penalties. The International Biathlon Union reported that the wind was constantly changing on the shooting range, making it difficult for even the best shooters to avoid penalties.
Susan Dunklee, who led the U.S. in Friday with a 10th-place finish in the sprint, had an especially tough day on the range. She missed seven shots and slipped to 37th place.
“I missed a bunch of shots on the right side,” she said in an e-mail as the team packed up. “Some of them were rushed. I didn’t feel that bad on the range. Some days the shooting comes together, some days it doesn’t, and that’s the nature of the sport.”
Dunklee said that the skiing wasn’t great either, and the women’s team had struggled with the slush. Temperatures were reported at around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and second-place Nadine Horchler of Germany lost a sprint finish because the edges of the trail were in particularly poor condition and she was unable to pass winner Iris Waldhuber of Austria.
In the men’s race, Jay Hakkinen led the U.S. team with a 27th-place finish. He moved up from bib 40 thanks to relatively clean shooting. Hakkinen missed three shots but only three of the skiers ahead of him shot better.
“It is always nice to move forwards in the pursuit,” Hakkinen told FasterSkier. “Pursuits are pretty basic: if you shoot clean you move forward, miss one you stay where you are, and miss more than one you move back. Therefore, I used a pretty basic strategy of skiing with those around me and trying to outshoot them in the range. Today was not an easy shooting day, though, with changing wind, which made that strategy challenging, but it ended up a solid performance.”
Hakkinen also had the 27th-fastest ski time of the day in just his fourth race of the season.
“It is a great feeling that my shape is improving, which I expected, but it is nice when it actually happens according to plan,” he said. “I definitely have been enjoying the races, having been starved from them for so long. I still have a lot of work to do, but I feel I passed the first test.”
Zach Hall and Wynn Roberts also moved up in the pursuit. Hall started 50th and finished 47th, despite having six penalties, while Roberts improved from 59th to 52nd. Roberts missed nine shots, but had the 39th-fastest ski time of the day.
Bill Bowler had a tough day on the skis, slipping from 49th to 55th.
Jay Hakkinen moving through the field in the pursuit. Photo: Viktoria Franke.Bill Bowler and Zach Hall were separated by just one second at the beginning of the pursuit. Photo: Viktoria Franke.Wynn Roberts in the pursuit. Photo: Viktoria Franke.
Susan Dunklee led the U.S. team with a 10th-place finish in the sprint in Altenberg, Germany on Friday. Photo: Viktoria Franke.
After last week’s success at the IBU Cup races in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, U.S. biathlete and 2010 Olympian Haley Johnson was promoted to the World Cup.
You might think that sending the top finisher off to Rupholding would slow down the American women racing on biathlon’s second-most prestigious circuit. But you’d be wrong. Susan Dunklee, Tracy Barnes, and Annelies Cook – who all missed qualifying for the Olympics last year – didn’t need Johnson on the roster to have the third-best team score in Friday’s sprint race in Altenberg, Germany.
Led by Dunklee’s tenth-place finish, the American squad trailed only the home team and the Russians.
Barnes and Cook have been on fire all season, each recording multiple top-20 finishes in IBU Cup racing and even earning a World Cup start or two. Today, they finished 17th and 21st.
But Dunklee, for whom this was only the third race in Europe this season, a top-10 result was a bit of a surprise.
“My zero groups were huge today and I haven’t felt on top of my game (skiing or shooting) for the past couple weeks so I didn’t have particularly high expectations for myself going into the race,” she told FasterSkier.
“Yeah, I’m psyched.”
Although this was the third year that Dunklee has made the trip to Nove Mesto and Altenberg, she’s never had such strong results before. She had finished in the top twenty just once on those trips.
But familiarity with the courses is never a bad thing, and Dunklee had a strategy for today.
“There’s a big steep headwall in the first half of the course and my goal was to hammer up and over the top and then hang on,” she said. “The trickiest part of the race was hearing my name announced over the PA system during the middle of my standing stage. It was a new experience for me and I really had to focus to hit my shots after that.”
A sometimes-erratic shooter, Dunklee missed only one shot on Friday.
In Saturday’s pursuit, the three women will start within twenty-five seconds of each other.
“For tomorrow, I want to have fun,” Dunklee said. “Tracy, Annelies and I will start practically within sight of each other and we hope to ski together and rumble with the women ahead of us.”
The U.S. men, who have not had as much success on the IBU Cup so far this season, were led by four-time Olympian Jay Hakkinen in 40th place. Hakkinen was sick in the fall to the season, and the Nove Mesto races were his first opportunities for head-to-head competition.
“Last week was my first races of the season,” Hakkinen said in an e-mail. “It was a great feeling to be back racing after being away so long. Since they were trials races, the big goal was to get back on the World Cup as soon as possible… but the [International Competition Committee] wanted me to race another week of IBU Cup races.”
After leading the team in Friday’s sprint, Hakkinen is one step closer to his goal.
“I am looking towards a World Cup start in Antholz, although there is no clear criteria or guarantee of whether I will be allowed to do so. I just hope to have a good performance in the pursuit tomorrow in order continue my goal of a top performance in the World Championships.”
If he does make the World Championships team, it will be an unusual story: because he was sick this fall, he didn’t even attend the trials races in Canmore or Mount Itasca and was named to the IBU Cup squad on discretion. Hakkinen also said that he wasn’t yet in race shape, and two days of racing in a row were a challenge for him.
However, he was positive about his shooting.
“My shooting has been strong,” he said. “Since while I was sick with mono, it was one of the only things I could work on and I knew I would be relying on it while I got used to the racing again.”
Bill Bowler was the next American, finishing a career-best 49th. He was just one second and one place ahead of teammate Zach Hall. Both athletes are relatively new to biathlon – Hall picked the sport up after graduating from Dartmouth College, while this is the first season that Bowler has raced internationally. The pair represent the opposite of Hakkinen in many ways – and were only thirty seconds behind him, for all his experience.
Wynn Roberts was another twenty-five seconds behind them in 56th, and Russell Currier rounded out the American squad in 82nd. Currier missed six of ten shots, among the most penalties in the field, and will be the only athlete sitting out Saturday’s pursuit.
2006 Olympian Tracy Barnes had the top North American result in IBU Cup racing, finishing seventh in the sprint in Martell, Italy. Photo: USBA.
This year, the U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) had a radical shift in its athlete development strategy: instead of sending a full squad to the World Cup and leaving the rest of the American biathlon field at home, they would minimize their World Cup presence to only those athletes who were succeeding, and field a much larger team at the IBU (International Biathlon Union) Cup races.
While the U.S. biathletes that FasterSkier talked to, on and off the record, were unanimously positive about the change, it’s going to take time to assess whether the new strategy is the best one for biathlon’s long-term growth in North America.
What is the IBU Cup?
The IBU Cup is the level of racing below the World Cup, and unlike in skiing, it’s a well-defined series of races contested by athletes from every IBU member country. Modeled after the World Cup itself, there are only eight weekends of racing, plus the Open European Championships and World Military Championships.
The IBU Cup is always incredibly competitive. But in April, the IBU Executive Board voted to reduce the field size at World Cup events, meaning that this year the IBU Cup is even tougher than usual.
In addition to diminishing each country’s athlete quota and capping the field at 108 starters, the IBU ruled that in order to compete in World Cup competitions, athletes must have finished within 15% back from the winner at an IBU Cup race. To continue racing on the World Cup in each new trimester of competition, athletes must now finish within 15% back in one World Cup race.
As a result, this year’s IBU Cup races have been especially competitive. So far, former World Champions and racers with top-10 World Cup finishes have skied and shot their way to top results in bids to regain World Cup start rights.
And racing right along with them were ten North Americans. Canada has traditionally sent a large group of athletes to the IBU Cup races, and in 2009 had six men competing there mid-season. The U.S., on the other hand, only funded two weeks of IBU Cup racing last year.
While a number of athletes moved between the IBU Cup and World Cup circuits, this year there were four American and six Canadian regulars at the second and third race weekends. In Martell, Italy and Obertilliach, Austria, they racked up seven top-20 results, including American Tracy Barnes’ seventh-place finish in the 7.5 k sprint in Martell.
With four more Americans headed to Europe next week, it’s important to assess exactly how the IBU Cup trips are benefitting North American athletes.
Pros: Confidence and Experience
The group of North Americans contesting the first round of IBU Cup races had widely varying levels of experience. On one hand, there was Scott Gow, a twenty-year-old Canadian who had competed in four World Junior Championships, but no senior events in Europe. On the other, there was 28-year-old Barnes, a 2006 Olympian and several-year World Cup veteran. FasterSkier caught up with both athletes, as well as American Bill Bowler and Canadian Melanie Schulz.
All the athletes said they had benefitted from the trip, but in different ways.
For Barnes, who did not get to compete on the World Cup last year and was not re-named to the national team this year, the IBU Cup is a place where she can get her groove back. After finishing 19th and 7th in Martell, she got called up to the World Cup, where she finished 64th in the 15 k individual race in Pokljuka, Slovenia. It wasn’t her best performance, and she later returned to Obertilliach to race.
“I feel more comfortable and more confident right now on the IBU Cup,” Barnes said in an e-mail. “When I get to the World Cup my confidence in my skiing falters, and I’ve lost the race before it even starts. But on the IBU Cup I find that I’m more aggressive and I attack on the skis and stay with people and try and pass them.
“The staff on the IBU cup has been so incredibly supportive and has helped me to really get to a place where I need to be competitively.”
While Schulz doesn’t have Barnes’ years of international experience in her back pocket, she is now in her second year of IBU Cup racing, and is beginning to see a payoff.
“I had my best results this last weekend in Obertilliach,” she told FasterSkier. At those races, Schulz finished 35th in the sprint and 30th in the pursuit.
But as she pointed out, racing internationally is a lot different than racing NorAms, which have tiny fields, sometimes comprising just ten senior women. NorAms don’t prepare athletes for the confusion of starting a 60-woman pursuit, as Schulz discovered in Obertilliach.
“I messed up in the pursuit race,” she said. “There are new IBU rules this year. Athletes are responsible for starting themselves, and the start is videotaped and reviewed to make sure everyone started on time. Starting up to 3 seconds early results in a 30 second time penalty, and starting more than 3 seconds early results in disqualification.
“Somehow with all the anticipation and excitement in the start gates, I ended up starting 0.2 seconds early. I didn’t realize this until the end of the race when I was bumped from 23rd place to 30th place due to the penalty.”
Her teammate Gow, despite top-10 World Juniors finishes and a relay medal to his name, learned a lot on the IBU Cup, too.
“This year was my first time on the IBU Cup and the level of competition was much higher than anything I was used to,” he said in an e-mail. “I felt that in order to compete on this circuit, it was really important that I race my best every day and make sure that everything I do in my prep work is perfect.
“I loved the atmosphere, too. Just being at that higher level is exciting and makes me want to train harder to be better. The experience I’ve gained from the IBU Cup is going to be great going into Junior Worlds this season, and for racing and motivating my training for next season.”
Bowler, who was racing overseas for the first time, said that besides providing general motivation, the experience helped him set specific goals.
“Now that I’ve experienced a high level of international racing, I can see exactly what I need to work on,” he told FasterSkier in an e-mail. “Biathlon is really interesting in that you can break down an entire race and see places where you can gain valuable pieces of time. Some of these elements for me include shooting speed and the speed of my approach and exit to the range. I’d like to chop another 5-10 seconds off my shooting speed per stage.”
So for all four athletes, racing on the IBU Cup circuit has been an important step in their continual quest for improvement.
Cons: Is It Best for the Sport?
But regardless of each athlete’s personal experience, questions still remain about whether sending large groups of athletes to Europe is what’s best for North American biathlon.
Bowler, for one, thinks that the U.S. should send more athletes to the IBU Cup.
“I think it’s great that USBA is able to support more IBU Cup racing this year,” he said. “If you look at the top guys in the sport, it has taken them many years of international competition to reach the level they’re at. Being able to go over there and gain experience is the first step towards getting to that point. It’s always a matter of funding, but giving more athletes an opportunity to race in Europe is the best catalyst for international improvement as a nation.”
But Gow had a different theory, even though he clearly benefitted from his IBU Cup experience.
“I don’t think we need more North Americans in Europe,” he said. “But we do need to emulate the same level of competition in our NorAm races. Obviously we can’t have the same field size, but we can create the same atmosphere and pressures that would exist on the IBU Cup. That would be the biggest way to get that same kind of experience without having to go to Europe.”
He has a point: with more and more of the top North American biathletes heading to Europe, there isn’t much competition left for everyone else. While everyone who goes to Europe clearly benefits, those left at home are starved for competition.
When racing resumes in January, there will be fifteen Americans racing on the World Cup and IBU Cup circuits, including every member of the U.S. men’s national team. That leaves approximately six senior women left to contest NorAms, and even fewer men. In USBA’s second round of trials, only three senior men bothered to show up, and one of them, Wynn Roberts, is now heading to Europe.
The situation illustrates how difficult it can be to build up a sport faced with such low participation. Providing the best athletes with opportunities could in some ways slow biathlon’s growth at the grassroots level. It’s hard to take NorAm racing seriously with such small fields, and even harder for athletes to improve when those are the only available race opportunities.
There’s a middle ground available: after the fifth weekend of IBU Cup racing in Altenberg, Germany in mid-January, part of the American team will probably be sent home. While a few athletes will stay in Europe for the Under-26 Open European Championships, the U.S. is not planning to field a team for sixth and seventh IBU Cup weekends in Slovakia and Bulgaria.
It’s encouraging that USBA is trying out a new strategy, and shows that they are dedicated to discovering the best solution to a complex problem. In the meantime, the best Americans and Canadians will continue to excel on the IBU Cup, and gain valuable experience on their path to the World Cup.
Sara Studebaker (left, USA) and Tora Berger (right, NOR) racing at the Vancouver Olympics. Berger won the World Cup race in Pokljuka, Slovenia today, and Studebaker had a personal-best 21st-place finish.
For most of Thursday’s 15 k individual race in Poklujuka, Slovenia, it looked like Kaisa Makarainen of Finland was firmly in control and would ski – rather easily – to her third World Cup win of the season.
In the last shooting stage, Makarainen missed one target, but thanks to her superior skiing, she still had a jump on the field. When she crossed the finish line, she led the race by an astonishing margin of nearly two minutes.
But Makarainen was bib 21, and Tora Berger of Norway, starting six places behind her, had other plans. It took every ounce of energy she had, and clean shooting, but Berger put her head down and skied. With 700 meters to go, she was still 2.1 seconds behind Makarainen. After an impressive finishing sprint, Berger came out on top – by just 1.8 seconds.
“Kaisa was going really fast,” she told IBU News. “I knew that I would have to do a very good last loop in order to catch her.”
After a disastrous race for the Norwegian men, Berger said that she felt she had “saved the day” with her first win of the season.
Makarainen, who won two races in Ostersund, Sweden, was disappointed with her finish. She told IBU News that she felt she could have won if the trails hadn’t been so crowded.
“I am a bit sad, because I lost some time on the final uphill,” she said. “There were many other skiers on the tracks and I could not pass, but had to stay behind them and that slowed me down some.”
Marie Laure Brunet of France finished third, and will wear the red bib as the leader of the individual race format in Rupholding, Germany, in January.
Sara Studebaker of the United States had a personal-best finish for the second weekend in a row, this time finishing 21st with only one penalty.
“The race was really good, and of course I’m psyched about the result,” she told FasterSkier in an interview. “It was not quite as tough wind conditions for the women, but it really depended on when you came into the range, since there was definitely some gusting.”
So far, Studebaker’s top-30 results have all come from clean or nearly clean shooting, and even with her excellent finish today, she only had the 52nd-fastest ski time. But she said that she felt her skiing was improving.
“The skiing felt really good today, especially compared to the last individual! Getting to ski in the top group near lots of the best women on the World Cup was very exciting. It was a good chance for me to see the level and motivating to see where I can get with a little more work.”
The other U.S. starters didn’t match Studebaker’s performance. Laura Spector finished 60th and missed three shots in her final shooting stage.
For the first time this season, there was a third American woman in the race. Based on her excellent IBU Cup results last weekend, Tracy Barnes got the nod to start today. Barnes, now competing independently, had been a member of the U.S. national team for many years, and had a pair of 25th-place World Cup finishes here in Pokljuka six years ago.
Today, the Slovenian track was not so kind to her. In a USBA press release, she said that she hit a rock on one of the downhills and fell, wrecking the base of her ski. Traditionally a strong shooter, Barnes also missed three shots – it just wasn’t her best day, and she ended up 64th.
Still, having Barnes racing was at least a psychological victory for the women’s team.
“It was great having a third woman on our team!” Studebaker said. “Laura and I are psyched to have had Tracy around for the individual and to have Annelies coming for the sprint race. It will be beneficial to our Nations Cup standings as well as giving more women a chance to race the top level. It’s very exciting to see how much progress we as a team have made this season already.”
Megan Imrie led the Canadian team with a 43rd-place finish, followed by Zina Kocher in 84th. Rosanna Crawford did not start.
The World Cup continues in Pokljuka on Saturday with sprint races.
The U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) decided to try something new this year: instead of sending all of its best athletes to the World Cup, they would send a smaller group of developing athletes to the IBU Cup – biathlon’s equivalent of the Continental Cup, but more competitive – as well.
“It’s better for athlete development to go to the IBU Cup and have success, than it is to go straight to the World Cup,” USBA President and CEO Max Cobb told FasterSkier in an interview.
Well: mission accomplished.
In the second weekend of IBU Cup racing, and the first with an American contingent present, Annelies Cook and Tracy Barnes each collected a top-20 and a top-15 result in Martell, Italy. Which is funny, because USBA wrote some guidelines for this very situation. In their athlete selection criteria, they said,
“Athletes achieving a top 15 and a top 20 at IBU Cup will be moved up to the World Cup provided there are open start positions.”
They couldn’t have guessed that not one but two women would meet the criteria. This year, the U.S. was allowed three World Cup starts for its women, and Sara Studebaker and Laura Spector have filled two of them so far – with great success, as each has a top-30 result to their name so far this season. USBA declined to fill the third spot because it felt that it would be better for the women’s team, which is viewed as weaker than the men’s team, to start at a lower level of competition.
Now, they have more fast women than spots on the World Cup, and with a second round of trials coming up to select more athletes for the next period of IBU Cups, things are only going to get more competitive.
To solve their current dilemma, USBA is bumping both Cook and Barnes up to the World Cup, Cook told FasterSkier in an e-mail.
“We actually just found out that we are being invited to race in the Pokljuka [Slovenia] World Cup this weekend,” she said. “Tracy will race the individual and myself the sprint. We are both really excited for this opportunity!”
As for the races that already happened: they were plenty exciting. In the first day’s 15 k individual competition, Cook finished 18th and Barnes 19th. Conditions were windy, just like in Austria for the World Cup.
“I have never experienced such wild and changeable wind conditions,” Cook told FasterSkier. “One second, it would be howling in one direction and then two shots later it was going in the opposite direction.”
Barnes, a World Cup and Olympic veteran, had possibly the most exciting race of anyone in the field.
“The first race, the individual, was for me a ‘glad to have that one over with’ kind of race,” she said in an interview. “Even though I’m the old fart on the team I still managed to miss my start because I grabbed one training ski and one race ski. Man, did I feel like a greenhorn!”
But Barnes’ troubles didn’t end there. She struggled in both the skiing and shooting portions of the race.
“The conditions on the range were incredibly difficult, and I felt that it was a great opportunity for me with the shooting,” she said. “But with a few too many mistakes, I missed that opportunity.
“Then, on the last loop of the race I went down on one of the downhill corners and ended up on my back under a fence with my skis facing uphill. I tried to get up but my rifle was stuck. I was sitting there flopping like a fish for I don’t know how long, and then all of a sudden I feel someone’s hands under my arms and I’m lifted off the ground and turned around so that my skis were facing downhill. I thanked the very nice, and very strong, volunteer for getting me out of the mess and was off down the trail. What a funny race.”
For Cook, a big part of her strategy was skiing safely but aggressively, which she managed to do.
“It was an exciting race series because they are now limiting spots on the World Cup, so there are more racers from the World Cup on the IBU Cups,” she said. “There was some serious carnage because of some twisty, turny, icy corners after the uphills… It was definitely part of my strategy to not crash on the downhills, and to pass girls in snowplows!”
The next day, both Cook and Barnes improved on their finishes in the 7.5 k sprint, with Barnes moving up to seventh place in the standings, missing only a single shot.
“The second race was fun, because I had the opportunity to rumble with Ekaterina Iourieva of Russia,” she said. “We both came into the range at the same time and she skied up to a shooting point and I skied up to the point in front of her and decided I’d try to mess with her a little. We were shooting shot for shot and I sped up my last one to get it off before her and hopefully mess her up, but no go, she cleaned as well and we went out on the last loop together. She put a little time on me on one of the uphills, but then by the last uphill before the finish I was able to catch her and pass her. It was just fun and exciting to be able to race with a Russian who has been a solid force in biathlon in the past.”
And indeed she has: Iourieva is a former World Champion just returning from a two-year doping ban. She finished sixth in the individual race and fifth in the sprint, making a argument for her return to the World Cup circuit.
Cook finished twelfth, and gained further confidence in her skiing.
“I was very happy to be skiing well compared to the field,” she said. “I was actually quite nervous because I have been feeling so much better skiing this year than previously, but you never really know until you start to race in Europe how you actually stack up. There’s a lot more racing to come, but it is good to start gaining a little confidence now!
“As far as shooting went…. Ouch! The shooting was not super stellar for me at all this weekend.”
Claude Godbout of Canada had a top finish of 26th in the sprint race.
On the men’s side, the Canadians had a few top finishes of their own. In Saturday’s 20 k individual, Scott Gow placed 15th – and it was the 20-year-old’s first race in Europe as a senior.
“My race this past Saturday was excellent, and I was ecstatic with my 15th placing,” he told FasterSkier in an e-mail.
“Going into the race my goal was to ski controlled, be relaxed in the shooting range, and with good shooting make it into the top 30. For the first couple laps, I was skiing controlled but not shooting very relaxed, and I think that caused my one prone miss, but after my first standing I got more into my normal shooting rhythm, which allowed me to hit the rest of my targets. Looking at results, there were a lot of people who struggled with shooting, and that is partially due to the fact that it was pretty gusty and unpredictable wind conditions on the shooting range. I’d like to think that being able to stay focused, relaxed, and not rushing my shooting also helped me knock down targets.”
And in Sunday’s 10 k sprint, Marc-Andre Bedard finished 11th, just under 40 seconds behind the winner, Andrei Makoveev of Russia. Bedard was in sixth place after the first shooting stage, but missed one shot in standing.
“I had a good one and felt like I was going for the podium,” he said in an e-mail. “But my miss standing just got me off of the top spots. Still, these are the biggest (in numbers) international races of the year, which are represented by over 40 nations and 170 men! Most of us are pushing for a spot on the World Cup and the top countries bring full teams of 7 men, so this is a great feeling to be on top there.”
Despite his excellent sprint result, Bedard won’t be getting the call to move up to the World Cup like Cook and Barnes did. But he has a few more chances.
“Unfortunately I need to keep on going fast if I want a chance to get on the World Cup after Christmas,” he said. “I was hoping to get to Slovenia right away, but I’ll keep racing on the IBU in Obertilliach Friday and Saturday hoping that I get some more top results top convince the coaches!”
The American men struggled, with Zach Hall finishing 79th in the individual and 96th in the sprint, and Bill Bowler finishing 92nd and 76th.
“Zach Hall caught a tough break on his last shooting stage in the individual race, entering the range at the same time as the strongest wind of the day,” U.S. coach Patrick Coffey told FasterSkier. “Despite some tough shooting, the men put in strong performances. Bill Bowler had an impressive sprint race, shooting 2, 1 on another windy day. On his first trip to Europe he has looked right at home on the international stage.”
While the men, and Godbout, will be heading to Obertilliach, Austria, for the third weekend of IBU Cup racing, Cook and Barnes couldn’t be happier to have the chance to race in Slovenia this weekend.
The women's field in a prone stage during the mass-start race in Canmore, Alberta on Friday. Photo: Seth Hubbard.
Independent U.S. biathlete Tracy Barnes and Jean-Phillipe Leguiellec, a member of the Canadian national team, won mass start races in Canmore, Alberta on Friday. It was the end of a three-race series put on by the U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) to select American athletes to send to World Cup and IBU Cup trips.
In the women’s race, Barnes had the cleanest shooting on the day, missing only two targets in four stages, which translated to an 18-second win over Anneliese Cook, a former member of the USBA development team. Cook missed one shot in each stage. Tracy’s sister Lanny Barnes finished third with three misses, 49 seconds behind Cook.
Yolaine Oddou of Canada finished fourth, narrowly edging out USBA’s Haley Johnson by only five seconds. Laura Spector, the winner of the first two races, finished sixth. Both Johnson and Spector were hampered by poor shooting, missing nine and seven shots, respectively. Oddon made up for slower skiing by missing only three shots. The most disappointed athlete at the end of the day was almost certainly USBA’s Susan Dunklee, who missed eleven targets, including all five in the last stage. She finished eleventh.
In the men’s race, Leguellec, who finished 6th in the sprint at the Vancouver Olympics, took the win by nineteen seconds over USBA’s Russell Currier. Marc-Andre Bedard, who won Thursday’s race, finished third. Lowell Bailey of USBA was fourth, and Bill Bowler, an American competing independently, was fifth; each of the top five athletes had five misses on the day and were separated only by their skiing. They were followed by USBA’s Zach Hall, who finished sixth with three misses.
After the race, USBA named the athletes who had been selected for the World Cup and IBU Cup trips. Selection was based on percent back, and each athlete’s best two performances were used.
Spector was the lone woman selected for the World Cup, where she will join Sara Studebaker, who was prequalified. With victory in the first two races, Spector was a clear winner at the trials, and the decision wasn’t a difficult one.
For the men, Currier and Bailey were picked to join Tim Burke, Jeremy Teela, and Leif Nordgren on the World Cup. Currier led the points standings, but Bailey was a discretionary pick. The USBA wrote, “The [International Competition Committee] in selecting Lowell Bailey noted that he had very strong results over the summer/fall and had been sick before the trials so was not at his best for the races. They also noted that he has played a very important role in World Cup Relays and that his experience there will be helpful to the team.”
The USBA also picked four athletes to send to early-season IBU Cup races in Europe, the level of competition just below the World Cup. In the past, an early-season IBU Cup trip has not been funded, and this was a decision made for athlete development. Tracy Barnes and Cook will be sent on the IBU Cup trip for women, and Bowler and Hall will represent the men.
The World Cup season begins in Ostersund, Sweden, December 1st.
The men's field early in the race. Photo: Seth Hubbard.The women's field early in the race. Photo: Seth Hubbard.
(Note: FasterSkier initially made an error and reported that Lanny Barnes was not re-named to the National Team. Since then, we have corrected the article – it was in fact her sister, Tracy, who was not re-named. FasterSkier apologizes for the error.)
Last year was a historic season for U.S. biathlon. In late December, Tim Burke captured the yellow World Cup leader bib, and continued to wear it through part of January; it was the first time an American had ever led the World Cup standings. Then, in Vancouver, Lanny Barnes posted the best Olympic results for an American woman since 1994, finishing 23rd in the 15 k individual.
Burke is back, and with his teammates he is ready to attack the World Cup circuit. The men had a European training camp this summer and are positioned for one of their best seasons in years.
The women, though, are another story. While none of the talent has left the sport, Lanny Barnes’ sister Tracy was not re-named to the national team, and is instead fending for herself. And while the men will take a full relay team’s-worth of athletes to the World Cup, the U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) has decided to take only two women to most of the World Cups – even though they were given three starting slots in each race. The flip side of this decision is that they will fund two athletes to compete in the IBU cups, which USBA views as a better opportunity for athlete development. The women’s team is as fast as ever, but with fewer World Cup starts, it will be tougher for them to create the strong results that the USBA says it must see to justify sending a full team.
But for both men and women, there are many opportunities for success this season. Read on to learn about the athletes you might be seeing in the news this winter.
Men
Walt Shepard and Kevin Patzoldt retired from the sport, but other than that the men’s team is much the same as it was last year. With several Olympic veterans on the squad as well as a couple of young guns, the men’s team has all the bases covered. Tim Burke, Jeremy Teela, and Leif Nordgren are pre-qualified for the first period of World Cups, while the rest of the team will contest the final spots at this week’s trials in Canmore, Alberta.
Bailey.
Lowell Bailey
Bailey grew up outside of Lake Placid, New York, and was one of the few biathletes to pursue a collegiate skiing career before turning pro. He led the University of Vermont Catamounts on the eastern carnival circuit before returning to biathlon and competing in the Torino and Vancouver Olympics. His best Olympic result came back in Torino, where he was 27th in the individual race, and he’s had several top-20 finishes on the World Cup in the last several years. Bailey is also a talented musician – go hear him play and sing if you have the chance.
Burke.
Tim Burke
Burke, of Paul Smiths, New York, is the biggest name in U.S. biathlon right now. With a couple of podium finishes on the World Cup last season, his performance led Americans to set some pretty high expectations for the Olympics: would Burke take home a medal? However, at the Olympics, he didn’t have his best races, partly due to the tough conditions in the opening individual race, which favored early starters. His top finish was 18th in the mass start. This year, Burke will be attacking the World Cup with renewed vigor – and as Olympic gold medalist Bjorn Ferry of Sweden told FasterSkier, now that Burke knows what he’s capable of, he could be very dangerous indeed.
Russell Currier
Currier is one of the younger members of the team, but he still has a lot of experience, having competed in 2 World Championships. Training out of the Maine Winter Sports Center last year, Currier showed the ability to jump in ski races, even classic ones, and hold his own against strong competition. This year, though, he was re-named to the U.S. team, and Currier won’t be doing much ski racing. Fitness is his strong suit, so his success largely depends on having a good day on the range.
Jay Hakkinen
Before Burke, Hakkinen was the “next big thing” in American biathlon. In Torino, he was the leadoff skier for the U.S. relay, and tagged off in first place; the relay ultimately finished 9th. More recently, he competed in Vancouver – his fourth Olympics – with a top finish of 54th place in the sprint. Hakkinen is clearly one of the elder statesmen of the team, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a few more great finishes in him.
Hall.
Zach Hall
Hall, originally from Nikiski, Alaska, only picked up biathlon three years ago, after graduating from Dartmouth College. All things considered, Hall has made impressive strides since then, and he is training with a very competitive U.S. team. He’s clearly learning from the best, and last year he got his first World Cup start, finishing 85th in an individual race in Antholz, Italy. Hall has been improving every year, so look for him to make big jumps this season.
Nordgren.
Leif Nordgren
FasterSkier ran a Pros of Tomorrow piece on Nordgren, so read that to learn everything you need to know about the 21-year-old prodigy. But here’s the short story: Nordgren captured a bronze medal at the 2008 World Junior Championships, and last year he got his first World Cup starts, finishing in the mid-60’s in a pair of individual races. His goals for the season are getting more experience on the World Cup, qualifying to race the pursuits, and maybe even scoring some World Cup points.
Roberts.
Wynn Roberts
A four-time World Junior Championships competitor, Roberts, like Nordgren, is originally from Minnesota – the heartland of U.S. biathlon, if you will. And like Nordgren, he’s relatively young. Still, he got a start at the Vancouver Olympics last year, finishing 86th in the individual race.
Teela.
Jeremy Teela
At 34 years of age, Teela is the other elder statesmen of the team. He has competed in three Olympics and a staggering 13 World Championship events, and has four top-10 finishes in World Cup competition. Last season, he had the top U.S. result in Vancouver, finishing ninth in the sprint. Teela has consistently been one of the best in the U.S., and this year should be no different.
Women
The biggest surprise on the women’s team is that neither Lanny nor Tracy Barnes, twin sisters, were initially named to the team. Lanny, however, was added partway through the summer, and Tracy is attending trials in Canmore this week to try to sneak her way back onto the World Cup, or at least the IBU Cup circuit, which is biathlon’s equivalent of the Continental Cup. Other than that, the U.S. team is more or less the same as last year, minus the development squad, which got cut for both men and women – but since the women’s squad is smaller, had a greater overall impact on the women’s team size. Sara Studebaker is the only woman who pre-qualified for the early-season World Cups.
Lanny Barnes.
Lanny Barnes
Lanny is perhaps the most experienced member of the women’s team. Besides her record-setting performance in Vancouver, which allowed her to squeak back onto the team, she also raced in the Torino Olympics in 2006, where she finished 64th in the individual race. Her 15th-place finish in a World Cup in 2006 is one of the best in recent history for a U.S. woman. Originally from Durango, Colorado, the Barnes twins are the best shooters on the U.S. team, and some of the fastest shooters on the World Cup in general. The younger members of the women’s team benefit from Lanny’s presence, but she’s not just a teacher – she can kick butt and win races, too.
Dunklee.
Susan Dunklee
Dunklee came to biathlon late, after skiing for Dartmouth College and helping them to the 2007 NCAA Championship. In the last two years, though, she’s had some impressive results, and her shooting has come a long way; in March, she earned her first North American championship. Dunklee barely missed the cut for the Olympics last year, and this season she’s even more determined to get World Cup starts. She’s also trying a new arrangement where she lives and trains with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project in Craftsbury Common, Vermont, while still attending the team camps – so stay tuned to see if that will make the difference in her results.
Johnson.
Haley Johnson
Johnson, of Lake Placid, took a break from biathlon to ski race for Bates College before returning to the sport several years ago. Last season, she finished 21st in a World Cup in Slovenia, and the year before, her top finish was 23rd. Johnson, a 2010 Olympian who at 28 is the oldest member of the team, could be the one to lead the American women to top-20 finishes on the World Cup, but first she has to qualify to race them – so check results from the trials races in Canmore this week.
Spector.
Laura Spector
Spector is the youngest member of the women’s team, but that doesn’t mean she’s inexperienced. She was named to the Olympic squad last year, and she has started in two different World Championships as well. This year, Spector focused intensely on her skiing, and it paid off – she’s clearly one of the fastest women in the U.S., and even skied to a victory at the Climb to the Castle rollerski race this fall by besting several U.S. Ski Team athletes. Spector is attending Dartmouth College for part of each year, making her achievements all the more impressive.
Studebaker.
Sara Studebaker
Studebaker dabbled in biathlon as a junior before taking time off to attend Dartmouth College where, like Dunklee, she contributed to the 2007 NCAA championship effort – and was named All-American in the process. Since her return, Studebaker has been on a tear, finishing 34th in the individual race at the Vancouver Olympics and starting a dozen World Cups. As the only pre-qualified athlete for this year’s first period of World Cups, she has the luxury of not competing at trials and instead focusing fully on preparing to race fast on the international stage.
The second phase of U.S. Biathlon Team Selection Races took place today in Altenberg at the IBU Cup Sprint events. The U.S. biathletes competing in Altenburg are vying for two open spots on the U.S. Olympic Team for men’s biathlon and three spots on the women’s team.
Like their teammates in Oberhof, the U.S. athletes had to deal with similar weather challenges. Lowell Bailey (Lake Placid, NY) put his game together at the shooting range with just one miss overall. Good enough for a ninth place in the overall result list with Toni Lang (GER) winning the race. Kevin Patzoldt (Grand Rapids., MN) also qualified for tomorrow’s Pursuit with a 58th place after two misses.
Seven U.S. women qualified for the last team selection race tomorrow. Lanny Barnes (Durango, CO) showed the best performance with a 21st place after just one miss, Laura Spector (Lenox, MA) followed just a few seconds behind in 23rd, and Sara Studebaker (Boise, ID) scored another Top 30 ranking finishing 26th in today’s race.
IBU Cup Racing continues with the mens and women’s Pursuit on Sunday, Jan. 10 at 4am and 7am (EST), respectively. The U.S. biathletes will keep their two best scores and the top man and the top two women will be nominated to the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team and the final athletes for each team will be nominated by the staff. The U.S. Olympic Committee and U.S. Biathlon will officially announce the team on Monday, January 11, 2010.
Live race data from the Altenberg is available here.
US Biathlon Team Selection Race Results – Day Two:
![To Die For Homemade Brownies recipe from the Barnes twins](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/11/barnes-twins-brownies1.jpg")
![One of two spaghetti squash recipes from the Twin Biathletes’ Cookbook.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/09/photo-2-1.jpg")
![One of two spaghetti squash recipes from the Twin Biathletes’ Cookbook.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/09/photo-1-3.jpg")
![Vermont Crepes (Twin Biathletes' Cookbook)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/08/crepes.jpg")
![Carne Asada Elk with Grilled Fruit/Corn (from Tracy and Lanny Barnes/twinbiathletes.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/08/Carne-Asada-Elk-with-Grilled-FruitCorn.jpg")
![Tracy (r) and Lanny Barnes skiing together into the finish of the 2013 North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships 7.5 k sprint last weekend in Jericho, Vt.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/08/tracy-and-lanny-barnes.jpg")
![Hannah Dreissigacker (Craftsbury Green Racing Project/USBA A-team) heads out with a 30-second lead in Sunday's pursuit after winning the sprint on Saturday at North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt. She went on to place second to Canadian Rosanna Crawford.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/08/IMGP0573.jpg")
![US Biathlon teammates Hannah Dreissigacker (r) and Susan Dunklee (c) in the range together with Biathlon Canada's Rosanna Crawford on the final standing of Sunday's 10 k pursuit at North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/08/IMGP0618.jpg")
![Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) winning Sunday's 10 k pursuit by more than a minute at North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/08/IMGP0632.jpg")
![Tracy Barnes (Twin Biathletes) finishing third in the 10 k pursuit at 2013 North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/08/IMGP0639.jpg")
![This is a scene the U.S. hopes will play out at the Olympics: Tim Burke on the podium after earning silver in the 20 k individual at 2013 World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. Photo: Nordic Focus/USBA.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/02/Podium021413cm061-1.jpg")
![Susan Dunklee had the best U.S. women's result of the season, placing seventh in the 15 k individual at the Sochi World Cup - where the team previewed the Olympic venue. Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/03/Dunklee03072013cm026.jpg")
![Can he do it again? Now a dad, Jeremy Teela finished ninth in the sprint at the 2010 Olympics.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2010/02/teela-bjorndalen-range.jpg")
![The national team money going towards development this year will be some token amount for a junior team, the details of which are yet to be announced; it will help athletes like Sean Doherty, 2013 Youth World Champion in the pursuit and twice a silver medalist. Photo: UBSA/NordicFocus.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/01/doherty-flag.jpg")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/08/lanny-barnes-2.jpg" "lanny barnes 2")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/08/godbout.jpg" "godbout")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/08/tracy-barnes.jpg" "tracy barnes")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/08/studebaker.jpg" "studebaker")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/08/dreissigacker-range.jpg" "dreissigacker range")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/bedardpinter.jpg" "bedardpinter")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/schultz.jpg" "schultz")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/Clegg.jpg" "Clegg")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/oddou.jpg" "oddou")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/01/Dunklee01112012cm156.jpg" "IBU world cup biathlon, individual women, Nove Mesto (CZE)")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/01/Cook01112012cm147.jpg" "IBU world cup biathlon, individual women, Nove Mesto (CZE)")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/01/Barnes01112012cm092.jpg" "IBU world cup biathlon, individual women, Nove Mesto (CZE)")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/01/Studebaker01112012cm048.jpg" "IBU world cup biathlon, individual women, Nove Mesto (CZE)")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/11/Anchorage1.jpg" "Anchorage1")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/11/newbiaimg.jpg" "newbiaimg")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/11/Anchorage21.jpg" "Anchorage2")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/11/Anchorage3.jpg" "Anchorage3")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/02/Sam-Dougherty-2.jpg" "Sam Dougherty 2")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/11/Anchorage4.jpg" "Anchorage4")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/IMG_3178.jpg" "Tim Burke and Jeremy Teela")
