Kontiolahti, Finland March 16.  Two women Rachel Steer (Anchorage, AK) and Sarah Konrad, (Laramie, WY) and one man, Jeremy Teela (Anchorage, AK) were the only US Biathletes to finish in the top 60 in the Sprint competitions today, thus qualifying for Saturday’s Pursuit competitions.

Steer had the top US result of the day in 43rd place, followed by Konrad in 50th in the Women’s 7.5K Sprint. In the Men’s 10K Sprint, Teela bested his other three teammates with a 51st place finish.

It is March in Scandinavia. In the four months since World Cup Biathlon made its last appearance here, the changes are spectacularly noticeable. During December in Ostersund, Sweden, there was barely enough snow to conduct the competitions, which were held with the stadium and track lights on, due to the early winter darkness. Switch to March here in east central Finland, just 30 Kilometers from the Russian border; the dense pine forests are filled with deep dry powdery snow, even as though spring is just weeks away. The sun has filled the sky this week for over 12 hours each day to counteract the deepfreeze-like nighttime conditions which reach minus 20 Celsius. Compared to December in Sweden, and the unending snow and wind last week in Slovenia, Finland in March seems like a bit of heaven.

Everyone needed these uplifting conditions. All of the teams rushed out of Bled, Slovenia last Sunday to Munich, Vienna or Milan to catch the early flights to Finland on Monday. Regardless of where they originated, everyone converged on the 4 PM flight from Helsinki to Joensuu on Monday. As the 200 plus athletes and staff boarded the plane, the faces indicated that everyone was all clearly tired from the combination of the long season, the strenuous Olympic Games the unceasing wind and cold of Sunday in Pokljuka, and a long day of travel. Now, with the competitions starting one day later this week (Thursday instead of Wednesday), and a couple of brilliant days, the gleam is coming back into the eyes of the athletes. They can feel spring in the air and the end of a long season. Starting today, just Sprint, Pursuit on Saturday, Mass Start on Sunday, a quick hop to Oslo for a repeat schedule and the year is over.

It is not just the bright sun and the super conditions in Kontiolahti that are making everyone feel better; it is the feeling that today’s Sprint competitions are something else—the beginning of the end of a very long season.

The Women’s 7.5K Sprint, with 74 starters, the smallest field of the season, kicked off the program today with a noon start. Sarah Konrad  in her first start since the Olympic Winter Games was number 26. She had an excellent start, cleaning prone. “It was pretty neat just skiing past the loop,” she commented, “But I probably went a bit too fast on the next lap.”  Accordingly, in the standing stage, after a split bullet on the first shot, she hit only two of the next four shots. Despite this, Konrad equaled her career best shooting (70%) from the Ruhpolding Sprint and finished with a career best Sprint finish of 50th place, 2:57.8 behind Anna Carin Olofsson of Sweden. Olofsson, finishing in 22:00.7, shot clean as did second and third finishers, Olena Zubrilova of Belarus and Tadeja Brankovic of Slovenia, 5.9 and 9.0 seconds back, respectively.

After the competition, Konrad added, “I wish I would have felt better (having been sick for 10 days after the Olympic Games). I thought I was recovered but when I tried to go fast, I could still feel some tightness in my chest.”

Rachel Steer started 63rd today to take advantage of the faster snow as the tracks warned up. Steer, after a strong performance in Sunday’s Mixed Relay World Championships, finished in 43rd place, 2:40.5 back, and seven spots ahead of Konrad. Steer had single penalties in each shooting stage today, both on split bullets. Steer’s 43rd and Konrad’s 50th places put them both in Saturday’s 10K Pursuit competition.

The Men’s 10K Sprint started three hours after the women. Jeremy Teela was the final US starter, at number 98. With his three other teammates having little chance to make the top 60, he was the US men’s only hope to make the Pursuit field. Teela shot conservatively on prone. “I have raced here before and know how the approach is,” he commented, “so once I hit the bridge (about 300 meters out), I shut down the engines.”  His clean shooting put him in 31st position. In standing, the hard approach caught up with Teela. He had three penalties. “I could have worked harder and hit one of those three, but I was surely going to miss one. My standing position just does not feel right. I do not have much confidence in it.” After the three penalties, Teela fell back to 67th position, but even though he admitted to “losing it a bit on the final loop,” he moved up to 51st at the finish, 1:54.7 behind Sweden’s Carl Johan Bergman, who picked up his first World Cup victory in 23:52.9.

Bergman shot clean as did second place Tomasz Sikora of Poland, 6.5 seconds back. Olympic Sprint Champion Sven Fischer of Germany, with one penalty, finished third, 12.5 seconds behind Bergman.

Jay Hakkinen (Kasilof, AK), fresh off his 11th place last week in Pokljuka was the first US starter. Hakkinen, who has been fighting a cold all week, had three penalties in prone. This put him in a deficit which he did not recover from, despite cleaning standing very fast; he finished 65th, 2:09.2 back. Tim Burke (Paul Smiths, NY) in his first competition since the Olympic Winter Games, admitted to being “a little bit stale,” as he had one prone and two standing penalties for a 70th place finish, 2:20.5 back. Lowell Bailey (Lake Placid, NY) started with a single prone penalty, but had four standing misses which pushed him back to 90th, 3:28 back.

The nice conditions in Kontiolahti obviously suited the Swedish Team who had two winners today. For others, who did not have the results here that they hoped for, those conditions possibly made them think it was time to put the skis away and take some needed rest. Regardless, there are still the Pursuit competitions on Saturday for Steer, Konrad and Teela and another chance next week in Oslo to finish the season on a high note. The days are counting down…

The United States Biathlon Association is the National Governing Body for the sport of Biathlon in the United States as recognized by the United States Olympic Committee and the International Biathlon Union. The US Biathlon Association supports the US Biathlon Team and development of the sport on all levels within the United States.