Good Morning Everyone-
Just a quick update on our biathletes from MN and WI on their European trip. From Nisswa we have Cam Christiansen, 19; Grand Rapids Vasek Cervenka, 16; Twin Cites Amanda Kautzer, 18; Jakob Ellingson, 23; Siena Ellingson, 20; and from Wisconsin, Paul Schommer, 23.
Paul, Jakob and Siena have been in Europe since the beginning of Jan mostly on the IBU Cup series of races [2nd tier of international racing] and Paul participated on one World Cup last week in Italy. Paul and Jakob are headed to the Open European Championships [seniors] in Poland for this coming weekend.
Cam, Amanda, and a teammate from AK, Travis Cooper, flew over to Munich on Saturday—arrived with all their gear on Sunday, and are currently staying in Munich sightseeing and getting used to the 6 hour time change. The US Biathlon program has a number of coaches and staff in Europe currently, and several actually reside there. Bernd Eichenbichler lives in Munich, and is the Chief of Sport for USBA, and Per Nilsson, the Men’s head coach lives in Sweden. The staff will pick up the athletes in Munich and transport everyone down to Slovenia.
Siena will be joining them. Vasek flew directly to Prague from Vermont [via Detroit] with his Dad and is staying in Czech Republic in Prague, their original family home. He will remain in Czech for the rest of the winter attending a sports academy like he did last year.
The first race for the Juniors [and Vasek racing up] will be on this coming Friday the 27th in Pokljuka, Slovenia, east across the north end of the Adriatic Sea from Italy. This is the IBU Jr Cup series. The format will be a single mixed relay followed by a Mixed Relay. More on those formats later. At this point the participants for the US have not been named. We will have 4 Jr Men, 1 Youth Man, 3 Jr Wm and 1 Youth Woman at the first events for the US.
Eurovision Sport televises a lot of the Biathlon in Europe as it is the most watched winter sport over there. http://www3.biathlonworld.com/en/. This is available live and as replays online.
If you go to ‘data center’ you can get the race schedules, and start lists, during the race you can see the running results, and they will post the final results there also. On the right side of the site is a way to get to the streamed videos. They put up the World Cups live, usually the highlights of the IBU Cup races after they are done, and some of the Jr races. Usually they will put the Juniors [Cam and Siena] up on some of the races at the YJr World Championships and at least highlites of those. The streaming is pretty good—but if you get a message saying ‘Sorry, this is being blocked in your country’ just keep hitting the refresh button as apparently they cut off the US as the load builds up, but adjust it quickly.
Good luck, thank you, and I’ll keep updating periodically.
Bill