From back to front, biathlon coaches Kim Wickstrom, Anita Baker, Marvin Genno and Kwan Lee take to their pop-up range in Kin Coulee Park to practice marksmanship.--News Photo Anna Smith
asmith@medicinehatnews.com
The Nordic Ski Club is expanding its horizons with the help of a grant from Biathlon Canada, and residents are invited to come out and try their hand at the new sport possibility.
“We are currently the only zone in Alberta that is not represented in biathlon at the Alberta Winter Games,” said Donna Balas with the Nordic Ski Club. As such, the club has been loaned 4 EcoAim systems to help them get started.
EcoAims are camera-based systems with electronic targets, which allow for marksmanship practice without firing any projectiles. While the club is still teaching gun safety as if they were using real rifles, the equipment is completely safe to use while looking and feeling similar to biathlon rifles.
From there, four club members, Marvin Genno, Kwan Lee, Kim Wickstrom and Anita Baker, have received training to become biathlon coaches.
“It was last year that I attended the biathlon coaching course,” said Lee. Since then, he has been hard at work, gaining contacts, raising funds in the biathlon community and preparing to help facilitate this new project. The other three made the commitment more recently, taking trips to Canmore over three consecutive weekends to learn the ins and outs of coaching.
Wickstrom explained that when they arrived to training, they realized their instructors were 17-year-olds, who had been training since they were much younger. She said seeing them so passionate for the sport and hearing that it’s what helped them keep with cross-country skiing, really helped encourage them to pursue this.
“We’re hoping to get more kids wanting to cross-country ski more, because it might give them something else other than just the skiing part of it,” said Balas. “They watch the biathlon during the Olympics as well, and they’re kind of excited about that.”
The first opportunity for residents to come out to try biathlon will be later this month, Aug. 23 from 2:30-5:30 p.m. at Kin Coulee Park. Those interested need not register, only show up by the Toboggan Shelter for some preliminary instructions and a chance to try out biathlon for themselves.
Those with a group of four who might want to lean into the competitive aspect can email cypressnordic@gmail.com to plan a race among themselves.
Looking at the months without snow to come, the Nordic Ski Club would also like to draw attention to an upcoming Provincial Open Rollerski Camp on Aug. 16 at the Medicine Hat College Gym. Registration is open for the camp at zone4.ca, with further details available on the Nordic Ski Club FaceBook.
