The snow is long gone at Otway Nordic Centre but biathlon remains a going concern for the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club.
For five days, a group of elite young sharphooters - some of whom are making tracks for the provincial team - gathered at Otway for the northern regional biathlon camp, where they drew upon the expertise of Caledonia Nordic Ski Club head coach Graeme Moore, guest coach Petr Zidek of Canmore Nordic Centre and former Canadian Olympic biathletes Tony Fiala and Tuppy Hoehn.
The purpose of the camp was to fit the biathletes with their rifles, practice precision shooting with a non-racing heartbeat and to get them used to roller skis to simulate skiing during the off-season.
Athletes and coaches from Prince George, Burns Lake, Vanderhoof and Smithers attended the regional camp. Other camps will be scheduled for early July, September and November, all of which will utilize the facilities at Otway Nordic Centre.
The first camp, which wrapped up May 8, included B.C. development team member Danika Fiala of Prince George, as well as B.C. talent squad members Mackenzie Connon, Quinn Friesen, Nicholas Veeken, Leila Flaviano, Allison Joyce, all of the Caledonia club. Also from the talent squad were: Cody and Kyla Vanwerkhoven, both of Nechako Nordics in Vanderhoof; Miler Kriese of Bulkley Valley Cross Country Ski Club in Smithers; and Adrienne Bender of Omineca Ski Club in Burns Lake. The camp also drew Caledonia athletes Liam Sincliar, Ethan Joyce, Damian Georgyev, Liam Huggett and Bjorn van Gelovan.
They went through drills like practicing their standing shooting while balancing on a plank of wood with a cleat centred underneath it. The idea was to get them to shoot with their body weight equally distributed to both legs rather than the natural tendency of having more weight on the forward leg.
Provincial and national championships are on the horizon for most of the camp participants in the 2018-19 season. Biathletes born between 1998 and 2002 are also eligible to compete in the Canada Winter Games in Red Deer, Feb. 15 to March 3, 2019.
Moore is entering his fourth season as head coach of the Caledonia club and his focus on developing the club's racing programs, cross country and biathlon, is producing the desired results. While the local teams are small, the athletes showed with their results last season they stack up well against the best in the province. Moore doesn't have a biathlon background and doesn't teach much of the shooting range activities to the biathletes but his focus on ski racing technique is applied to both disciplines.
"At Caledonia we really try to keep the programs integrated because we see a lot of benefit to having strong skiing to really help in biathlon," Moore said. "Typically the skiing in biathlon is not very strong but we want them to ski and shoot well and that's why we have quite a few kids on the provincial (cross country training) program right now.
"I think every year we're getting stronger (in cross country). This will be the first year we've seen progression from our development programs into our racing programs. We've really seen an increase in the abilities of our 10-to-12-year-olds and that will feed nicely into our junior development program."
Caledonia cross country skier Kaia Andal is an example of what can be accomplished by sticking with a year-round training plan. Andal, 19, the top aggregate skier in her class at the national championships in Thunder Bay, raced internationally and was nominated for the junior national team this spring but has retired from ski racing.
The club wants its older racers, 14 and older, to train throughout the summer using sport-specific drills and exercises.
"If they're not doing some pretty consistent training when they're 14 or 15 it gets pretty tough in the winter for them," said Moore.
The focus now is on getting the club's snowmaking equipment installed at Otway during the warmer-weather months as well as making any necessary improvements to the lodge and grounds to smooth preparations for the International Paralympic Committee world para nordic skiing championships, Feb. 15-24, 2019. The event is expected to draw about 140 athletes from 20 countries.
A $275,000 private donation from the Rickbeil family and a $60,000 grant from Northern Development Initiative Trust allowed the club to light the final loop of a five-kilometre free technique course to complete Phase 2 of the Rickbeil Family Nordic Light Park. It gives Otway more lit trails (15 kilometres) than there are at Canmore Nordic Centre. The lit trails meet international requirements for racing and now the Caledonia club has the ability to host international races at night.
Moore is hopeful the club will make pavement a priority after the upcoming season. Ideally he'd like to see a five km paved track and paved biathlon shooting platform to better allow year-round training. He's encouraged by UNBC's relationship with the club and how it is using the Otway trails and the club's racing presence to help recruit new student-athletes. There are very few cities in Canada with well-developed and maintained nordic facilities which have the post-secondary school options Prince George can offer to ski racers.
