At the Spring NYSSRA Nordic meeting, former US biathlon Olympic coach Art Stegen and I announced a plan to begin providing more opportunities for junior biathletes to become involved and improve their skills. Our goal is to provide low and no-cost opportunities for New York’s junior biathletes to gain experience and begin to come together as an informal group, with the hopes that their skills will improve and their participation will increase. If this begins to happen, we feel the momentum will naturally feed upon itself, drawing more juniors to the sport and once again making New York a leading feeder of national biathlon talent.
Our initial plan was to offer summer clinics for junior biathletes and established nordic skiers interested in biathlon. Ultimately, we decided on two summer clinics which would take place directly prior to two scheduled summer biathlons so that the participants could put their new skills to use immediately.
The first clinic took place at the Saratoga Biathlon Club on July 17, 2009. We had a small group of three boys, but the training and effort was excellent and I believe all three of them learned quite a bit. Luckily, the rain held off and we were able to accomplish all of the planned shooting instruction. Two of the three boys went on to compete in the summer biathlons races that weekend and both did quite well.
For the second clinic on Saturday August 8, 2009, we moved to Old Forge to take advantage of the growing interest by junior athletes in that area. We were happy to have 8 participants, including 2 girls! Again, the weather cooperated nicely and we were able to accomplish a lot of quality shooting instruction despite having several newcomers and more shooters than targets!
The following day, 5 of the boys and girls returned to compete in a summer biathlon event put on by the Polar Bear Club, plus another boy with a background in target shooting and cross-country running also came to compete, for a total of 6 junior biathletes in the race! Once again, the results were encouraging and it appeared as though they all enjoyed the experience.
Art & I would like to thank the Saratoga Biathlon Club and Polar Bear Nordic Ski Club (especially Karl Klossner) for their support of these two clinics, which were held free of charge to all participants.
Again, our goal is not to start a new club or provide full-time biathlon training. Rather, Art and I are looking to provide more opportunities for junior biathletes to gain experience in between their already hectic high school athletic and social schedules. The hope is that the word will spread and more established nordic skiers will hear about it and will look to get involved as well. This will allow more junior skiers to get an earlier jump on the long learning curve inherent to the sport of biathlon.
As summer comes to an end, Art and I plan to pull out our calendars and again look for additional opportunities for this fall and winter, so stay tuned. If you are or know of a junior biathlete or an established junior nordic skier might be interested in future opportunities, let us know.
Sean Halligan (shallig1@nycap.rr.com)
Art Stegen (AStegen@msn.com)
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