Eight Nations on the Start

The lighting in the stadium and on the tracks was on full power as 34 World Cup competitors from eight nations staged a relaxed training competition. After light snowfall during the day and temperatures finally below freezing, it looked almost like a dress rehearsal for the season-opening World Cup competitions next Wednesday and Thursday.

An Informal Affair

Well, it almost looked like a World Cup competition. . . The bibs borrowed from the Organizing Committee were not the shiny new ones that the athletes get in each competition. The registration and results were done on one of the coach’s clipboards.

The start/finish line consisted of a line drawn on the shooting range and the timing consisted of numerous handheld stopwatches. Coaches were instructed by “chief of competition” US Coach Per Nilsson before the start, “to record your athlete’s penalties and bring them to me after the competition.” He then added, “I will e-mail the results later tonight.” With such informality, the courses were not quite those seen in the major competitions, with the men covering 14.5K and women 11K in a four-shoot individual format, with 45 second penalties. As for the spectators, well, most of them were probably in downtown Östersund, as the stadium was totally empty except for the athletes and coaches. Of course this competition was held while about 50-60 athletes not competing were training.

Even with such a low-key atmosphere, the athletes did a good warm-up, worked hard to get a good zero, and were racing just as if it was for a spot on the World Cup Podium.

There were even several battles down the finish stretch to gain an extra two-tenths of a second!

Stars and Medalists

It did look a bit like a World Cup; especially from the names on the start list. Among those testing their skills or getting a final tune up, were World Cup stars and medalists like Sikora, Bergman, Gregorin, Maric, Fak, Semerenko, and Khvostenko. However some of the less known competitors had a good evening. Great Britain Coach Walter Pichler was beaming over Marcel Laponder’s 18-of-20 shooting, exclaiming, “That was great!”

Peter Dokl of Slovenia shot clean, and took the victory for the men, while Darya Domracheva of Belarus and Krystyna Palka of Poland tied in the women’s competition.

Details Important to Coaches

When the competition was over, several female competitors removed themselves from the results as they went on the wrong loop. Yet those results were not the most important part of the evening. Most important to the coaches were the range times (time spent on the shooting mat), loop times, and overall ski times. They now have more data on just how ready and prepared their athletes are for this important Olympic season.

As Slovenian Coach Uros Velepec said, “We planned to do a race with our team on Sunday, but with more people, this was a better idea.”

For the biathlon family, a competition on a cold Saturday evening is just as enjoyable as an evening spent in a nice warm restaurant downtown . . . maybe.