The kid had taken an early lead right off the start.
Quick and powerful double poling had put her far enough ahead to allow her to break into the smooth push/glide of an experienced skate-skier. Four minutes later, she rounded the turn at the end of the first kilometre. As she approached the gate she rose up out of the forward lean and quietly and smoothly removed the pole straps from her hands. As she neared the range you could see her change from a driving athlete into someone calm, quiet and determined.
Approaching the range she placed the poles down together at a diagonal, and lay down on top of them as she nestled the butt of the gun into her shoulder and stared through the peep sight at the 45 mm diameter targets 10 metres away.
The air rifle spat, there was a clang, and the first of five targets flipped back. Five shots, five bull's-eyes later and the girl sprang up, grabbed her poles, turned her back on the gun and skied purposefully away.
Sixteen minutes later she skied across the finish line having shot three rounds for a score of 12/15, and a time of 22:07 over four kilometres.
The kid is 20 years old. The sport is biathlon.
The Loon Lake Sureshots, a biathlon team, held a meet the weekend of March 24-25 to close off their season. Begun in 2010 by teacher-coach Tara Carter the team had competed successfully at the provincial level last season, when all of the team medalled, winning two bronze, five silver and a gold medal in both the distance and sprint events in two age groups. This year the lack of snow meant the team could only make it to three matches including their year end match. The biathlon meet was well attended by parents, who had been looking forward all season - a frustratingly snow-free season - to watching the team compete.
"It requires a special type of parent to be a biathlon supporter," Carter said, "they have to like driving to remote areas and standing around in the cold but we have wonderful parents."
Ernie Studer is the only school within to the Northwest School Division to support a community- based biathlon club. Biathlon, an Olympic winter sport, combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. The school has taken steps to support and encourage cross-country skiing through the purchase of equipment and maintenance of tracks and trails, while the shooting component of the sport is closely monitored by community co-coach RCMP Sgt. Shawn Carter.
At the junior level, the distance event involves skiing a six kilometre course and shooting three times over the course of the race. Competitors in the younger age groups shoot with air rifles five times at three stations from a prone position, at 45 millimetre diameter targets 10 m away. In the sprint event the athletes usually ski four kilometres, stopping at one kilometre intervals to shoot. All cross-country techniques are permitted in biathlon - but while both skate skiing and classic are allowed most athletes, (course permitting), choose to skate ski as it is significantly faster.
"We teach both classic and skate techniques in phys ed," said Carter, "but the kids really love skate-skiing because they can get up speed. The athletes begin training in September, when we lots of interval training (running), and shooting. By beginning early we can concentrate on learning how to slow the breath down so as to shoot accurately, and do it in conditions that enable the kids to lie down without worrying about snow. Later when the snow arrives we concentrate on ski technique."
When asked what was appealing about the sport three of the girls on the team, Indy Davis, Dante and Quin Carter (ages 13, 10 and 13) were quick to respond.
"It clicked when we were living up north," said Dante Carter. "Our class went out to cross-country ski and I just felt so good when I did it! Then one of the teachers introduced me to shooting and that was fun too - I'd go out hunting with my Dad. Now when I go out and do both - ski and shoot - it just makes me so happy! I love going downhill on the skis because you can catch so much speed. I've been at meets where you have downhill sections that are a minute long."
"I love the sport," Quin chimed in, "because I get to be outside and the people in the sport are all really nice - there's no over-competitive people like you can find in other sports. People congratulate one another even if they don't know you. I like the skiing better than the shooting, I think, because once you get up to speed it takes very little effort to keep it."
When asked about how one makes the transition from skiing to shooting (she shot a perfect 15/15) she answered, "I start to slow down my breathing when I take off the poles so that when I get to the gun I can be very, very still. It's really calming after the exhilaration of the skiing a lap. You shut down, calm down and go into the shooting mode."
"I like the shooting best," said Indy. " I've always enjoyed the skiing, but shooting and skiing combined is just an awesome sport. I like the calmness and the quiet of the shooting after the adrenalin rush of the skiing. I'd recommend this sport to everyone. The training is fun because you get to try different activities for cardio and the shooting's great as well."
The biathlon team is one facet of a school that prides itself on embracing winter sports.
"Two or three weeks ago," said Principal Brad Freyman, "we made the decision that since our school was going to move forward with this sport we'd need to invest in some equipment, so we bought a two-piece groomer and now we can both set tracks for classic cross-country skiing, and maintain a groomed skate lane for our skiers right here in our schoolyard. It was a joint decision/purchase between the Biathlon Club and the school that was made possible through both school fundraising and grant money available from Sask. Lotteries and Biathlon Saskatchewan.
"When you only have an hour for the class it makes it a lot easier for physical education instruction to take place without the challenge of having to travel to the park. It will also enable Tara to move forward with her plans for a ski team as a complement to the biathlon team. There are all kinds of loppets and races around the province that we can attend, and hopefully many of those kids will feed into the biathlon club as well."
"It was really neat," continued Freyman speaking about the popularity of the activity. "Once the kids got out a couple of times they started waxing their skis during their breaks so that they could get in more time skiing. When it warmed up they were out there in their t-shirts. At lunchtime students were going out to ski on their own, and the teachers during phys ed classes were having to drag some of them in at the end of the period to go to their next class or head home at the end of the day.
"You know you hear talk about kids these days not getting outside for physical exercise, but here we play broomball, we skate, we curl and we ski. All outside activities. Most of our students haven't seen the inside of a gym since early January."
When asked about future plans Freyman noted that "in the future we're looking at purchasing more skis -we deliberately bought our classic skis in shorter lengths so that kids could skate with them - but we'll need some dedicated skate skis to complement our classic skis. We're also hoping to form a working partnership with the parks to possibly groom a skate lane to go along with the classic trails that are in the parks now."
