Feb 5, 2018 - Prior to 2017, U.S. men had won only two ... men's 10K sprint in Sochi, finish- ing one .... men's and wom
PyeongChang Preview:
America’s Biathlon
Medal S H T
There’s no closer connection within Olympic circles than the sports of Shooting and Biathlon.
USA Shooting and US Biathlon are uniquely bound together because a gun is a piece of equipment athletes use to help achieve their dreams. People naturally assume the two are governed together, but one is based in Maine and the other is based out of the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. With the 2018 Olympic Winter Games set to get underway on Friday, February 9, we’re proud to be cheering on our shooting sports brethren at UShBiathlon as they attempt to earn their first Olympic medal ever. Based on results of the last four years, they’re in a prime position to do so and when they do we’ll be riding that wave of momentum all the way to our 2020 vision. We get you ready to cheer for the U-S-A with this biathlon preview. Photos courtesy of NordicFocus/U.S. Biathlon
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February 2018 | USA Shooting News
The U.S. Biathlon Team will look to ride the wave of its history-making performance at last year’s world championships and capture its first-ever Olympic medal at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. Three-time Olympians Lowell Bailey (Lake Placid, New York) and Tim Burke (Paul Smiths, New York) will compete in their fourth Olympic Games and utilize their experience to break through to the podium in the men’s events. On the women’s side, 2014 Olympian Susan Dunklee (Barton, Vermont) has steadily improved since Sochi to become a legitimate threat to medal in PyeongChang.
has consistently improved her technique and advanced steadily up the world cup rankings.
Susan DUNKLEE
Prior to 2017, U.S. men had won only two individual world championship biathlon medals — silvers in 1987 and 2013, but Bailey inked his name in the record book winning the country’s first gold medal last February in the 20-kilometer individual race. He finished the season ranked eighth in the world cup total score, a career best. The first U.S. athlete to qualify for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, Bailey hopes to become the first American biathlete to medal at the Games. Burke placed 19th in the men’s 10K sprint in Sochi, finishing one place shy of his careerbest Olympic finish of 18th place in the 15K mass start event in 2010. After ending the 2015-
USA Shooting News | February 2018
16 season with two sixth-place finishes in the sprint and pursuit at the world cup final in KhantyMansiysk, Russia, he ended the year ranked No. 15 in the final world cup standings, marking his best ranking since capping the 2012-13 season at No. 10. No American woman had ever won an individual medal of any type at the world championships before 2017, but Dunklee changed that with her silver medal in the 12.5K mass start. Her best finish prior to her 2017 breakout was fifth place in 2012. Dunklee’s best individual performance from her Olympic debut in Sochi was an 11th-place finish in the women’s 12.5K mass start. Since the Sochi Games, she has consistently improved her tech-
nique and advanced steadily up the world cup rankings. After earning top-20 overall rankings in 2014-15 (No. 17) and 201516 (No. 14), she finished the 2016-17 season 10th in the women’s world cup rankings, a career best. Joining Bailey and Burke on the men’s side is Sean Doherty (Center Conway, N.H.), Leif Nordgren (Marine, Minn.) and Russell Currier (Stockholm, Maine). All five have Olympic experience. Dunklee’s female teammates include Clare Egan (Cape Elizabeth, Maine), Joanne Reid (Boulder, Colo.), Emily Dreissigacker (Morrisville, Vt.) and Maddie Phaneuf (Old Forge, N.Y.).
ended 2017 ranked No. 15 in the final world cup standings.
Tim BURKE
was the first U.S. athlete to
February 2018 | USA Shooting News
qualify for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.
Lowell BAILEY
Matt Emmons has been a fixture on the international shooting scene for years, and now he’s beginning to leave his mark on another Olympic sport. Since 2015, the four-time Olympian and three-time Olympic medalist has been working with the U.S. biathlon team as a consultant. It’s a role in which he will continue as the team prepares for next year’s PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. “I’ve always loved coaching,” said Emmons, a native of Mount Holly, New Jersey, who makes his home in the Czech Republic. “I enjoy teaching and love sharing things I’ve learned over the years to help others. Watching someone learn and grow, then achieve their dreams, is incredibly rewarding, often more so than any medal I could win myself.” Emmons’ involvement with the biathlon team came about through Sean McCann, the longtime United States Olympic Committee sports psychologist with whom he’s worked for most of
with his help, the U.S. Biathlon Team is on
his career. Emmons, 35, always had a great deal of respect for biathlon athletes, who combine cross-country skiing with rifle marksmanship. So, when McCann began working with the team several years ago, Emmons offered his services should the team ever be in need of help with shooting. In the spring of 2015, McCann mentioned to Emmons at a shooting competition that the US Biathlon chief of sport, Bernd Eisenbichler, would like to speak to him about possibly helping out. The two began emailing; Emmons met with Bernd and men’s coach Jonas Johansson, and the partnership was born. Read the full story here
USA Shooting News | February 2018
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track for 2018.
Matt EMMONS
2018 Olympic Biathlon Schedule: Find the complete schedule for the biathlon event below (times and dates are EST). The Games will be broadcast on NBC, NBCSN and across the networks NBC Universal. Every Olympic event will be available to stream live and ondemand on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. Saturday, February 10, 6:15 am – Women’s 7.5km Sprint Sunday, February 11, 6:15 am – Men’s 10km Sprint Monday, February 12, 5:10 am – Women’s 10km Pursuit Monday, February 12, 7:00 am – Men’s 12.5km Pursuit Wednesday, February 14, 6:05 am – Women’s 15km Individual Thursday, February 15, 6:00 am – Men’s 20km Individual Saturday, February 17, 6:15 am – Women’s 12.5km Mass Start Sunday, February 18, 6:15 am – Men’s 15km Mass Start Tuesday, February 20, 6:15 am – Mixed Relay Thursday, February 22, 6:15 am – Women’s 4x6km Relay Friday, February 23, 6:15 am – Men’s 4x7.5km Relay
Biathlon Explained:
For Groundbreaking Biathlete Tim Burke,
PyeongChang Is Final Shot For Gold Tim Burke has been ranked No. 1 in the world. He’s captured a world silver medal. And made three U.S. Olympic teams. But Burke is still chasing that one ultimate achievement that has eluded him and every other U.S. athlete who has competed in the challenging sport of biathlon: a coveted Olympic medal.
The 34-year-old Burke is determined to make history with the next Winter Games in PyeongChang less than 15 months away. The last full season before the Games begins with the IBU World Cup opener this weekend in Ostersund, Sweden. “Everything has gone really well with my training,” Burke said.
“We just finished a three-week camp in Canada, in Alberta. Now I’m just resting and recovering before the world cup event. I’m really excited about the season.” Burke has been a busy man since the last Winter Games in 2014 in Sochi. He has continued to train and compete, and he married German biathlete
TimBURKE
will be it for me.”
“I am planning to retire after the Olympics, so this
Andrea Henkel, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and eight-time world champion who retired in 2014. The couple celebrated their two-year anniversary last month. “Andrea’s been great — she’s so supportive,” Burke said. “She obviously understands the lifestyle we have as an Olympic athlete with all of the training and traveling that we do.” The couple is also in the process of building a home in Lake Placid, New York. Burke grew up near Lake Placid, in the small town of Paul Smiths, New York, and was born just two years after the 1980 Winter Games were hosted in Lake Placid. Several elite winter athletes still live and train in the Adirondack town at the U.S. Olympic Training Center the Continue reading the full story here
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There are five race formats at the Olympics that hand out a total of 12 gold medals: five each for men’s and women’s events, and more in mixed events. A quick primer on each format:
INDIVIDUAL (20km for men,
SPRINT (10km for men, 7.5
15 for women) -- works like a staggered time trial, where competitors (89 men and 85 women in Sochi) start in 30-second intervals and compete for the best finish time. They go through four rounds of shooting in which they must hit five targets with five bullets, alternating between a prone position and a standing one each round. For each missed target a fixed penalty time, usually one minute, is added to the skiing time of the biathlete. Competitors’ starts are staggered, normally by 30 seconds.
for women) -- features an identical format but exactly half the distance and shooting obligations as the individual format. For each miss, a penalty loop of 150m must be skied before the race can be continued. As in the Individual competition, the biathletes start in intervals.
PURSUIT (12.5km for men, 10 km for women) -- biathletes begin the race separated by their order and time intervals of finish in the sprint, and the first racer to cross the finish line wins. The stakes are particularly high because only the top finishers qualify for
the Mass Start. there are four shooting round (two prone, two standing, in that order), and each miss means a penalty loop of 150 m.
MASS START (15km for men, 12.5km for women) -- all contestants start the event at the same time. For congestion reasons, only the 30 fastest racers from the sprint get to participate in the Mass Start. As in Sprint races, competitors must ski one 150 m penalty loop for each miss.
RELAYS four biathletes—women first, then the men—complete the same course. The Single Mixed Relay, held between teams
of one male and one female biathlete that complete two laps in total instead of four, is new to the 2018 Games.
VENUE Biathlon events will be held at the Alpensia Biathlon Centre during the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games located in the PyeongChang Mountain Cluster. The ski resort area of Alpensia will also feature the rest of the Nordic Olympic sports including crosscountry, ski jumping and Nordic combined. The sliding events of bobsled, luge and skeleton will also be found in Alpensia.
February 2018 | USA Shooting News
BIATHLON
Did you KNOW? The Shooting Portion . . . Let’s face it, most reading this are ultimately most intrigued by the shooting portion of the biathlon events. Here’s the skinny on the shooting portion of Biathlon as provided by Chris Cheng on AccurateShooter.com prior to the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. Target racks are located 50m from the firing line. The targets, which flip from black to white
when hit, are 45mm (1.8″) in diameter for prone, and 115mm (4.5″) in diameter for standing. Biathlon rifles are sophisticated. The top competitors use rigs with slick, straight-pull actions, integrated magazine carriers, and ergonomic stock designs that work well for both prone and standing positions. The advanced slings use “bungee cords” to allow rapid deployment from on-
the-back carry position (while skiing) to the shooting position. One of the most popular Biathlon rifles is the Anschütz model 1827F Fortner. This features a straight-pull action with a twostage trigger typically adjusted to 550 grams (19 ounces). The sprint version of the model 1827F weighs just 3.7 kg (8.16 pounds). Remarkably, even the magazines are optimized for “high-speed,
low-drag” performance: “Shortened 5-shot magazines were laterally incorporated into the stock to reduce the surface on which the wind can act. Non-slip magazine bottoms make the handling of the loading process easier. An additional magazine release lever on the side makes an even faster exchange of the magazines possible.”
Just Because You Can Shoot, Doesn’t Mean You Can Be A Biathlete We’ve seen Olympic sprinters transition into bobsledders, cyclists becoming speedskaters, and gymnasts flying into aerials skiing, but why don’t we see shooters gunning for Olympic medals in biathlon? Bailey said there is a good reason why the majority of biathletes come to
the sport from Nordic skiing. Because “most would argue that the cross-country skiing component of the sport takes a lot longer time to get to an internationally elite level,” he explained. “Whereas you’ve seen it time and time again that you can take an elite cross-country
skier and within a relatively short amount of time — say three to five years — you can get them shooting at an elite level relatively quickly (if they have the aptitude). Compared to the roughly 20 years it takes of training cross-country skiing to get to an elite level.”
Learn More with these videos & graphics: US Biathlon Hype Video The Biathlon Rifle
Who to watch (Besides Team USA)
Who is Susan Dunklee
When 44-year-old Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, the most decorated Winter Olympian ever with 13 total medals and eight golds, was left off Norway’s biathlon team amid a run of poor finishes, it left the door open for other names to emerge as the face of biathlon. It’s highly likely many of those names will also be Norwegian. Johannes Thingnes Bø and his older brother Tarjei Bø should both be podium factors—they sit comfortably in the top 10 of the
Lowell Baily Aims for Biathlon History
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World Cup standings and are the centerpieces of the national team that dominates the sport. But the sport’s standalone star male athlete is now Frenchman Martin Fourcade, who grew up watching Bjoerndalen and is now out to equal him, needing just two Games to earn more medals than any other French Winter Olympian. Germany and Russia also have fielded strong teams in recent Olympic cycles. Courtesy of Sports Illustrated
USA Shooting News | Summer February2013 2018
Biathlon Explained Biathlon Explained Graphic
Story credits: NBCOlympics.com, US Biathlon & TeamUSA.org
