Biathlon: US Biathlon selects sixteen biathletes for its Vuokatti pre-season camp
Last weekend, the top biathletes in the United States took part in their pre-season selections at Soldier Hollow (USA). In wheel-skiing, the competition produced a list of sixteen names qualified for the American pre-season camp on snow in Vuokatti (Finland) next month.
Deedra Irwin and Campbell Wright, thanks to their results last winter, are at the top of the list and are guaranteed a place in the first three stages of the World Cup (Kontiolahti, Hochfilzen, Le Grand-Bornand). The same goes for Kelsey Dickinson and the returning Paul Schommer, the best biathletes in the selections.
In addition, Margie Freed, Grace Castonguay, Luci Anderson, Michaela Keller-Miller, Jackie Garso and Tara Geraghty-Moats, on the women’s side, and Sean Doherty, Jake Brown, Maxime Germain, Vaclav Cervenka, Vincent Bonacci and Luke Brown, on the men’s side, have qualified.
At the Finnish meeting, they will battle it out for the last two World Cup places, with the others having to make do with the IBU Cup in Idre Fjäll (Sweden) and then Geilo (Norway). ” This process, inaugurated last year, allows the athletes to prove themselves on snow in the run-up to the competitions,” said Lowell Bailey, US Biathlon’s high performance director, in a statement.
The full US squad for the Vuokatti pre-season snow camp (Finland)
Ladies
- Deedra Irwin (Pulaski, WI/Army World Class Athlete Program) 🇺🇸
- Kelsey Dickinson (Winthrop, WA/Craftsbury Green Racing Project) 🇺🇸
- Margie Freed (Apple Valley, MN/Craftsbury Green Racing Project) 🇺🇸
- Grace Castonguay (Jackson, NH/Craftsbury Green Racing Project) 🇺🇸
- Luci Anderson (Golden Valley, MN/Team Birkie) 🇺🇸
- Michaela Keller-Miller (Plymouth, MN/Craftsbury Green Racing Project) 🇺🇸
- Jackie Garso (Lake Clear, NY/Craftsbury Green Racing Project) 🇺🇸
- Tara Geraghty-Moats (West Fairlee, VT/National Guard Biathlon) 🇺🇸
Men
- Campbell Wright (Wanaka, NZL/U.S. Biathlon) 🇺🇸
- Paul Schommer (Appleton, WI/Ariens Nordic Center/Team Birkie) 🇺🇸
- Sean Doherty (Center Conway, NH/Army World Class Athlete Program) 🇺🇸
- Jake Brown (Saint Paul, MN/Craftsbury Green Racing Project) 🇺🇸
- Maxime Germain (Chamonix-Mont Blanc, FRA/National Guard Biathlon) 🇺🇸
- Vaclav Cervenka (Grand Rapids, MN/Army World Class Athlete Program) 🇺🇸
- Vincent Bonacci (Salt Lake City, UT/Team Crosscut) 🇺🇸
- Luke Brown (Saint Paul, MN/Craftsbury Green Racing Project) 🇺🇸
- The challenges of the Soldier Hollow US selections
- Soldier Hollow: the US selection sprint for Maxime Germain and Emma Lunder
- Soldier Hollow: Benita Peiffer and Paul Schommer win the mass-start of the American selections
