Eastern Europeans, Germans and Scandinavians tend to dominate in biathlon, but dark-horse Americans have been known to occasionally make their mark in the sport.
The United States has continued to see top performances this year by Rachel Steer and Jay Hakkinen, both of Anchorage, Alaska. But it was Jeremy Teela's ninth-place finish in the men's 10-kilometer sprint at the 2001 Biathlon World Championships in Pokljuka, Slovenia, that caught the world by surprise — including Teela. It was the second- best finish in history for an American at the world championships.
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"I've always wanted to win a gold medal," he told the U.S. Biathlon Association. "But before this year's World Championships, I am not sure I believed. Now, I honestly believe I can win a gold medal or get a top three."
Although biathlon is one winter Olympic sport in which the United States has never medaled, anyone in the top 30 has a chance.
"It just has to be your day," says Lyle Nelson, a four-time Olympian and biathlon manager for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. For biathletes, "their" day must not only mean skiing the fastest but shooting the best.
Biathlon is a dual-skills sport, combining fast skiing with expert marksmanship. In World Cup and Olympic competition, biathlon races are 7.5, 10 and 20 kilometers. Biathletes must complete a certain number of laps around a course, stopping at the shooting range several times during a race, aiming a .22-caliber rifle at five targets the size of silver dollars about 50 meters away.
For the first time, the United States hosted two Biathlon World Cups in the past year — at Soldier Hollow, Midway and at Lake Placid, N.Y.
At Soldier Hollow, the Olympic venue for cross country skiing and biathlon, top-ranked Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway won three competitions, and top female biathlete Magdalena Forsberg of Sweden won two competitions.
Both are considered to be medal favorites. But respectable finishes by Hakkinen and Teela in the men's 10-kilometer sprint show real promise for America's first Olympic medal in the sport of biathlon.
When it comes to the pursuit, a newly added Olympic event, spectators will likely see a dash to the finish between Bjoerndalen and Raphael Poiree of France. The two battled for the overall world cup trophy. And in the end of the 2001 season, Poiree claimed his second straight world title by a mere 10 points — the closest margin in men's biathlon history. He also became the first man in a decade to win back-to-back overall titles.
On the women's side, Forsberg has dominated in the past five years. By the end of the 2001 season, she had a total of 13 wins, outdistancing her closest rival, Norway's Liv Grete Skjelbreid-Poiree. Yet although Forsberg has repeatedly taken home the world cup trophy, she has never won an Olympic medal.
But anyone can win.
"While the world cup overall battles single out Forsberg, Poiree and Bjoerndalen, the fact remains that biathlon is a wide-open sport when it comes to championship events," said Chad Salmela, biathlon coordinator for SLOC.
Hoping to gain the home-court advantage, many U.S. Olympic biathletes, including former Olympic biathletes Kristina Sabasteanski and Curtis Schreiner and his wife, Deborah Nordyke, have moved to be near Soldier Hollow.
"By the time the Olympics arrive, I will know each inch of the trails," Schreiner said.
Sabasteanski is training with the U.S. team under head coach Algis Shalna, an Olympic gold medalists for the Soviet Union. Schreiner and Nordyke are training with Chuck Lyda, coach of the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program.
Other up-and-coming U.S. Olympic hopefuls include Andrea Nahrgang, Jill Krause and Kara Salmela, all of Minnesota. Salmela made the World Championship team but came down with the flu and never made it to competitions in Slovenia.
New to the U.S. Biathlon Team is 20-year-old Lowell Bailey of Lake Placid who reached the Olympic podium twice with bronze medals at the European Biathlon Championships in Haute-Maurienne, France. He followed this by winning the final Europa Cup in Switzerland before the World Junior Championships.
Just four men and four women will make the U.S. Olympic team, to be decided at the U.S. Olympic Trials Dec. 29-Jan. 3 at Soldier Hollow.
And biathletes are cheering for each other.
"Whoever makes the Olympic team," said Schreiner, "it will be one of our best."