Lou Chouinard, our MN Biathlon Treasurer, offers some suggestions on donations.
To receive a tax deduction, the check should be made out to MN Biathlon and mailed to Lou at 3925 30th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55406. The donor can designate the athlete to whom the donor intends to give it to, and MN Biathlon will honor that and send the athlete a check. Or the donor can make it a general athlete donation and the amount will be divided equally amongst Emma, Cheresa, Matej and Amanda.
If the check is made out to the athlete, we will just forward that on to the athlete, but no tax exempt deduction can be claimed.
Well, Trials are behind us! It was a pretty brutal experience between the altitude, heavy snow and a lot—a whole lot of wind on some days! The Midwest group had 14 athletes including Emily Broderson racing in the Masters class. Of those with MN connections, we placed 4 of the 17 now named to the US Teams!! In order of success:
Emma Stertz—top Junior woman Cheresa Bouley—2nd Junior woman Matej Cervenka– 4th Youth man Alexandria Rud– 4th Youth woman—Alexandria is a dual citizen from Norway with family connections in MN! She has raced with our group twice now.
Unfortunately, it takes a number of weeks at high altitude for the bodies to adjust, produce more red blood cells, and to allow full performances! As student/athletes, that is pretty much an impossibility for those of us living around 1200 feet above sea level when we have to race at 5900 feet!! Most of our athletes did improve as the race series progressed..and all certainly felt better! However, the Youth and Junior World Championships will be held this year at the same venue in Utah, so picking a team that can have success there was both important and an early opportunity to see and experience the same venue as those races in February!!
So while our skiing suffered, especially the first days, we again did very well on the shooting side. There were a total of 59 Youth and Juniors doing the 3 races—or a total of 3 x 59= 177 “individual races”. Of all those, 32 had ‘races’ shooting 80% or better—13 of them were our athletes. Only 14 shot a race 90% or better—and we had 6 of those. And only 3 had clean races, and we had 2 of those: Kaisa and Saylor both shot a clean race!!!!
To give you an idea of the conditions during the long 10km pursuit race—only 2 of the 59 shot 80% or better. It was nasty windy!!!
I think we can all thank Jeff Bosek for passing on his expertise on the ranges over the past 3 yrs—Kaisa has now cleaned 3 races in Soldier Hollow alone… still looking for that clean 4 stage race yet!!
So of the above three MN athletes and plus Amanda Kautzer, who is headed for the IBU events in Europe, with an eye on the last spots on the Olympic team—only Emma Stertz qualified for any financial help and that is for Worlds in the US, the European trip is self pay. Matej qualified just for the Utah events on a self pay basis. Cheresa and Amanda are totally on a self pay basis. With that in mind, if anyone wants to donate to help fund their expenses, Minnesota Biathlon is a 501c3 corporation and your donation is tax deductable. If you prefer to designate a recipient, the donation can go directly to that athlete, if not, then it will be divided equally between Emma, Cheresa, Matej and Amanda.
For this coming week—most have races next weekend—so should concentrate on easy distance skiing. Coming up on the 15th/16th weekend are the next Regional races –down in Middleton [Madison] WI. Mark Torresani indicates conditions should be good and the invitation will be forthcoming early this week!! And the 29th/30th will be Regionals in Elk River!
So enjoy the snow, keep racing, and for sure, enjoy the Journey! Bill Meyer, Coach
The race scheduled for December 19th will be turned into an open practice session with a 5K time trial as snow conditions allow (not an official race). USBA members from other clubs are welcome to the practice session.
Yesterday’s 68 degree temperature, rain and high winds caused a lot of melting and left a lot of debris on the course. I spoke with the Blackhawk snowmaking crew this morning and plans are to start making snow on Saturday night. We will start to get ready for a full course for the mid January Midwest Regional races to be held at Blackhawk.
Coming right up on this Sunday, we will have MN Cup #1 at the same venue. The Mt Itasca Crew has been making snow and conditions should be excellent for both race series!!
GOOD MORNING!! I am happy to report conditions are looking good at Mt Itasca for the upcoming race on Sunday, MN Cup
Our many thanks to the hard working crew at Mt Itasca that got this much done..and more snowmaking will start again on Friday when temps cool a bit more again. There should be adequate groomed areas available for some training on snow Saturday if folks want to go up early!! PLEASE be sure to pay the daily fee at the kiosk by the HQ building!! And also please respect the equipment which may be working when you are there—give them a lot of room!!
