Biathletes from the Omineca Ski Club have a number of races in their sights, during March. It’s the month the snow usually melts but it is also when the hottest competitions happen.
“There is a lot going on,” said Karen Broadworth, parent and coach involved with the OSC biathletes. “One group is going to Nationals, another group is going to BC Winter Games, this past weekend we had a ladies event that was a big success, we just had our Valentine’s Ski which is my favourite event of the year with all the candles and torches on the 1.8k trail. It’s a pretty great time at the ski club.”
Ewan Hawse, Ella Broadworth and Matthew Wiebe all going to BC Winter Games in Vernon at the end of March.
The Hamp family - Randy in the Masters division and two daughters Julia and Nicole - are all competing at the Nationals being held in Quebec in mid-March.
Not bad for a club whose members are not predominantly targeting competition.
“Our club is more of a recreational ski club,” Broadworth said. “We have a few racers, but not many. We like our scavenger hunt skis and Valentine’s ski, and recreational type events. That’s what we seem to attract here. There used to be quite a race team, but that has dwindled. But we hosted some races (a Teck Northern Cup Series event on Jan. 29) and had, holy smokes, probably 90 people registered. We seem to have some new, younger skiers that are showing interest in it, so hopefully that will grow the program.”
Cross-country skiing is the usual starting point for those who become biathletes. The skiing skills are obvioulsy and necessarily transferrable, but then there’s that shooting element. The ability for someone to control their breathing and calm their thumping pulse for accurate discharge at the targets, after charging around the ski trail as fast as possible, is a whole other tier.
It also requires a rifle, and not just any rifle. Biathlon has its own special shooting tool built for safety and athletic advantage.
“Biathlon is an expensive sport,” Broadworth said, with racing-level skis also not cheap. “The club has some rifles to rent, and the other clubs in the north are pretty open to helping out if they can.” For example, one Burns Lake biathlete is left-handed, so a southpaw rifle rental was arranged through Caledonia Nordic Ski Club in Prince George. “We do have rifles forthose who want to try it, but if you want to get more competitive, we have to look at how to fulfill that.”
The club and other families involve in the sport are happy to surround any new biathlete with the support they need to transition from participant to competitor.
“Biathlon is not something you see parents drop their kids off for, and go. It’s usually a family thing,” said Broadworth. “You need the buy-in from the family. That works out great, because that grows our Masters program as well. You get the parents out shooting right along with the kids.”
The Hamps are a great example of the family buy-in, she said, with the whole clan involved in off-season renovations to the club’s facilities. When an underground electricity system was needed, or conversion to LED outdoor lights for night skiing, the Hamps were often the first ones there and the last ones to leave when the work had to be done, said Broadworth, whose family is another perfect example of full commitment.
She points also to the Dickson family. The Dickson parents are still involved in coaching, even though their Olympian daughter Emily is gone to Europe racing on the World Cup circuit. And their other daughter Allie is, in Broadworth’s estimation, the main engine of biathlon success at the OSC these days.
“Allie Dickson is the main coach,” she said. “She’s just so super-awesome she ends up coaching in other parts of Canada and Europe and all over, so when she’s away I just sort of help out. We take what we can get with Allie, the kids love her, she’s such an amazing coach. My role is the filler-inner and the helper-outer. Our family has been cross-country skiing for awhile, now, but last year and this year were our first years for biathlon. We’ve got some pretty good supports here. Allie’s dad fills in coaching sometimes, too. Randy and Gabriela Hamp help out a lot, and they know what they’re doing.”
Allie will attend the Canadian Biathlon Nationals with the Hamp contingent from March 13-19 in Valcartier. She will then transition almoswt immediately to Vernon for the BC Winter Games with the teenagers headed there to represent OSC March 23-26.
“This year it is 13, 14 and 15-year-olds,” Broadworth said, explaining this unique post-COVID edition of the BCWGs. “They pulled in the older kids because of qualifying for the Games that weren’t held and got bumped to this year. That’s a pretty big age gap, for athletes at that age.”
As a warm-up for all those athletes, and many others from Omineca who want to have a competition closer to home, a large contingent from OSC was in Prince George for races at the Caledonia Nordic Ski Centre on the Feb. 24-26 weekend.
The Lakes Loppet will be held on March 19 combined with the club’s St. Patrick’s Day Ski, so Lakes District participants have an event all their own on the horizon as well.